


buried under deeper ground

by elinadsy



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Skulduggery Pleasant (Book One) AU, Violence, background slow burn valduggery, important: valkyrie/stephanie is 26 when her and skulduggery eventually meet, mature themes, this is gonna be a Long Fic my dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-03-17 18:46:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 94,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13665063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elinadsy/pseuds/elinadsy
Summary: when the lights go out, it's a waiting game.Or, in another universe, Skulduggery Pleasant arrives ten minutes early that fateful night; Stephanie Edgley never joins him on his investigation; Nefarian Serpine wins.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is going to be a Long, Long fic. Currently I have it estimated at fifteen chapters. Long chapters. As mentioned in the tags, eventual (background) slow burn Valduggery, wherein Valkyrie grew up never having formed a relationship with Skulduggery beyond the one time they met at the reading of Gordon's will.
> 
> This chapter is very short, but the next one will be very long and probably not up for a few weeks minimum as I'm going overseas and will be quite busy. (Sorry in advance).
> 
> Also, thank you to the lovely Mooncactus who is beta-ing this fic for me! Gd bless....

The call comes in and he listens without speaking, hangs up without thanks. It’s three days too late but he _finally_ has a lead. His wristwatch says nine thirty pm, and it’s time to get moving. He picks out a tie, takes out a thick scarf and winds it around his unfortunately all too distinct features, and briefly, _briefly_ considers changing his hat.

 In one universe, he does; but in this one, he does not. In this universe, he decides to stick with the fedora that’s served him for decades, rather than spend three minutes choosing another hat. In this universe, he gets green light after green light on the roads and  as a result, entirely misses the car that breaks down on his usual route to Gordon’s house, blocking the middle of the road.

 In _this_ universe, Skulduggery Pleasant arrives ten minutes early.

He pulls up to his old friend’s house, the Bentley cutting through the night like a blade through flesh, and he gets out, brushes some lint off his great coat, pushes his sunglasses up his nose. He misses his old head and its high cheekbones; his sunglasses keep slipping down and banging on the place where his nose should be.

 Despite this personal torment, Skulduggery immediately notices from his well hidden position in the trees when the other, considerably less impressive car parks across the street. He nods to himself, watching the unremarkable man get out.

  Vendick Leather is a man who looks cocky. Skulduggery surveys him carefully; no hand held weapons, and his clothes aren’t made with protective magic. Skulduggery isn’t sure if Leather is an Adept, or an Elemental, and frankly, he doesn’t care. One of his closest friends died by the hands of the man who sent this sorcerer out here tonight.

  Leather walks straight past him, taking his phone out. Skulduggery turns to watch him, and then sees the single light on in Gordon’s house; sees, within that room, a dark haired girl watching television.

  Gordon’s niece.

   Leather pauses at this, a wicked grin stretching across his face; Skulduggery makes his move before Leather can take another step. His forearm comes to bear and snaps the air from the man’s lungs instantly, and he struggles in that choker hold as Skulduggery’s other hand closes over his mouth. A minute later, Leather is on the ground, unconscious, and Gordon’s niece is none the wiser. Skulduggery cuffs him, and drags his limp body back to the car, disappointed he didn’t get the chance to catch Summers in the act.

  _A little anticlimactic,_ Skulduggery thinks to himself, hoping that the Elders will still listen to him.

-

Stephanie Edgley sits on the couch, and during an ad break, realises the window is wide open-  that anyone could see in. The idea gives her goosebumps; it’s pitch black out there, an inky, impenetrable darkness that anything could be lurking in.

 She immediately gets up and closes the window, draws the curtain. Pauses. Goes and locks all the doors. Feeling safer, she returns to the soap opera she was lazily watching. She laters falls asleep there; the next morning, her mother comes and picks her up, and they go home, back to their normal lives in Haggard.

-

Cassandra Pharos wakes up the next day from where she fell asleep on the lounge, sweating, horrified.

 Every single twig figure in her house slowly spins and points to her. Her windows are closed; there’s no breeze that could have moved them. Her heart and ears fill with whispers of what’s to come, and her eyes are stained with what she’s seen. But unfortunately, by the time Cassandra manages to get an audience with the Elders, things are already in motion, and out of her hands.

-

The Elders don’t believe him. Neither does Ghastly, whose family vault remains unopened. China waves away his concerns, and the rest of the Dead Men are out of the country, or unreachable. In a last, desperate attempt to prove his suspicions, Skulduggery goes to Gordon’s house to investigate just what it was that Gordon had left there, what the stubbornly silent Vendick Leather refused to divulge.

 Unfortunately, Serpine gets there first.

 Things move quickly, after that, with Skulduggery Pleasant out of the picture.

-

 Serpine kills the Elders, and then, snivelling, foolish little Sagacious Tome, and lays that awful, red right hand on the Book of Names. Mere hours later, his allies step out from the shadows all over the world, the old symbol of the Church of the Faceless remerges on buildings, in fields. Only a week later, it begins appearing on corpses. Eventually, as Skulduggery Pleasant struggles in his bonds, Serpine will carve this symbol on the insides of his eye sockets.

-

The first official traitor, China Sorrows wastes no time in slipping on her most gorgeous dress, her highest heels. He hair cascades over her shoulders like the night sky, and Serpine’s Sanctuary opens its doors to her. She walks with the confidence for which she is renowned, and Serpine receives her with delight. Swollen with pride and ambition, his eyes tracing her like a lover, he doesn’t see how she is so carefully examining him. Her delicately clasped hands rest on several different symbols etched into her hands long ago, symbols of observation, of detection. Most importantly, he doesn’t see how those eyes aren’t smiling when she laughs.

  He immediately sets her to work; she immediately settles in to what will be a long, long century.

-

Ghastly Bespoke closes up his shop three weeks into what will eventually be called the Faceless Uprising some decades later, but his workload only increases as the remaining Dead Men band together. His fingers grow scabbed with needle pricks from working overtime to create armour at triple his usual speed, his back begins to ache from hunching over for hours on end. His creations save lives, but nowhere near enough, and soon, the practical one, he is the first of the Dead Men to reluctantly disappear from the scene. Like all immortals, he can recognise when the battle is lost, and if the war is to be won, the long game has to be played.

-

 The Sanctuaries fall quickly. The mortals take a little longer; idiotic, desperate sorcerers sacrificing themselves at every turn to keep the two worlds apart. All those invisible alliances lend themselves to the war Serpine is waging; the Anti-Sanctuary, the Diablerie, the Necromancers. Even the Children of the Spider peel away from the darkest corners, their long legged forms the stuff of nightmares.

 Finally, the numbers from the resisting side thin out; the mortal world officially falls, coincidentally, on October 31st, 2009 with no small number of casualties. The Empire of the Faceless officially reigns supreme.

 They’re dark days by anyone’s standards.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when the lights go out, it's a waiting game.
> 
> Or, in another universe, Skulduggery Pleasant arrives ten minutes early that fateful night; Stephanie Edgley never joins him on his investigation; Nefarian Serpine wins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heres the next chapter!!!! lots of set up going on here, i hope you all enjoy !
> 
> Also, thank you to the lovely Mooncactus who is beta-ing this fic for me! Gd bless....

Stephanie squints at the tiny swirl, eyes red from hours of staring, the pen resting on long formed calluses.

 The symbol looks a tiny bit too shallow for her liking, the arches not _quite_ defined enough. She sets the pen down, remaining in her squat next to the metal. Her thighs, used to this kind of treatment for hours on end, give only a low moan in protest.

 “Valkyrie.”

 Stephanie starts at that perfect, melodious, smooth purr of a voice, and glances behind her. Her gaze meets a perfectly fitted pant suit, and travels up to an unimpressed pair of eyes that would -and have- make men fall over themselves.

 China Sorrows looks down at her with a face that suggests, subtly, that Stephanie could -and should- do better.

 “Yes, China?” Stephanie says, biting back the annoyance in her throat. She gets along with China well enough after a decade and a half or so of working under her, but it’s seven in the evening, she’s missed dinner, and the last carriage leaves soon.

 China gracefully pulls her pants up and somehow makes squatting elegant.

 “This is unacceptable,” she tells Stephanie, tracing the sigil with the tip of a perfectly filed nail. “You’re off by a quarter of a millimeter. The spell would snap backwards onto the person using it.”

 Stephanie wants to roll her eyes, but instead casts a meaningful glance to the clock that hangs in the workshop at all times.

 China raises her brows at this.

 “I’m sorry, do you have somewhere to be?” she asks, quite pointedly.

 “The last carriage leaves soon,” Stephanie mumbles, trying to sound pleading rather than angry.

 “And the Emperor wants this archway finished by the end of July,” China replies, sounding contemptuous rather than understanding. “I’d say his desires rather outweigh yours.”

 Valkyrie looks up, about to say something she’ll undoubtedly regret, but China cuts across her as she opens her mouth.

 “Finish what you’ve done, and for the Faceless’s sake, _be careful_ ,” China says, straightening up. She brushes off a minute amount of dust from her gauzy slacks, the fabric a supple, deep shade of blue that Stephanie envies. Stephanie sighs, easing back into her squatting position, flipping the magnifying lenses back over her eyes. Another late night, she grumbles, thinking of the clenching of her belly, her bed in the apartments. She feels uneasy at the thought of walking home in the dark, if only because the Cleavers give her the _creeps_ , and it’s not uncommon for some of the younger sorcerers to roam the streets after a particularly boozy night out.

 She’s just about to press the pen back to metal when China clears her throat. Valkyrie, having quite forgotten she was there, topples onto her backside in surprise.

 “I’ll have some dinner sent up to you,” China tells her, a little softer this time, almost, as if she _cared_. “Tell my assistant when you’re finished, and I’ll arrange for you to be taken home.”

 Stephanie blinks.

 “I can’t have my best Carver being waylaid by hooligans,” China says coolly. “Not until this is done.” China regards her and for a second, Stephanie thinks she’s going to say something else; but she leaves the room.

  Stephanie gets back to work.

 

-

 

Some hours later, long after the plate China had sent to her is littered only with bread crumbs and smears of stew, Valkyrie sits back on her haunches and examines her work once more. Satisfied, she eases into a standing position and groans in pain, stretching out her joints. She’s reasonably satisfied with her work, but knows China will likely still have a few choice words about it tomorrow.

  _Whatever_ , she decides. She’s exhausted, stumbling down the stairs. China’s ever present assistant appears and opens the back door, revealing a waiting, two person, luxury carriage. He opens the carriage’s door for her and Stephanie gratefully sinks into the plush seating. The assistant presses a few select symbols on the door, locking her in and sending the carriage off.

 It’s a half hour ride to the apartments Stephanie was allocated to, and she spends it half asleep, watching the scenery pass. Every now and then she sees a sweeper, or a squad of Cleavers patrolling, but otherwise the streets are empty. She remembers the old nights, Before, when the streets were full. Somnolent, these images haze through her mind, and then suddenly, the carriage is at her apartments; the door swings open.

 She eases herself out and picks up her pack, the sharp chill waking her as she opens the apartments’ door and climbs the stairs up to her floor. The stairwell is looking as gloomy and mouldy as ever, and Stephanie wrinkles her nose, putting her hand over her mouth. Her building’s been in need of cleaning for years, but of course, the sorcerers want nothing to do with it.

 She briefly entertains the idea of organising a team of cleaners, but dismisses it almost immediately. The last person to organise something similar was reallocated to another town and sent for re-education, because God _forbid_ the mortals have a chess club.

  _What was his name?_ She wonders to herself, coming to her floor, legs trembling from the exertion after a long day of being held in a particular position. _Daniel? Jordan?_ No, that isn’t right, something bolder, she remembered he chose it after an old movie star…

 She quietly opens the door to her room, careful not to make too much noise. Alex lays asleep in her bed, and Stephanie blinks at the contraband book open across her chest. She closes the door and the tiny click shakes the girl awake, guiltily scrabbling at the paperback.

 “Valkyrie- I wasn’t- I don’t-”

 “I didn’t see anything,” Stephanie tells her (you can never be sure if there are hidden sigils in these apartments, that’s one thing she’s learnt from her time with China) but says it with a smile. Alex relaxes a little, but closes the book and slips it beneath her mattress all the same. They haven’t been roommates very long; fresh from the Irish countryside, Alex was relocated to Haggard on her eighteenth birthday to assist with the farming district, and a year later is still nervous and shaky.

 Stephanie sometimes wonders if she remembers what it was like Before, but she dare not ask.

 “Another late night?” Alex asks.

 Stephanie resists the urge to say _Obviously_ , taking off her jacket and hanging it up. “China has me working on an important project,” she says carefully instead. “It’s on a tight deadline. What was for dinner?”

 Alex screw up her nose. “Mushroom risotto. _Again.”_

“We haven’t had meat since last _November_ ,” Stephanie mutters. She can still remember it; roasted chicken, an unexpected treat. The mere thought of it makes her salivate. “Christ, I could go for some roast beef.”

 “My village used to make roast mutton,” Alex sighs, looking a little teary, homesick. Stephanie counts her blessings every day that she wasn’t allocated to another town away from her father. It’s a privilege not many are allowed. Stephanie sits on her bed and pats Alex’s arm a little awkwardly. Her previous roommate, Clodagh, was a miserable middle aged woman whose condescending, sharp tongue Stephanie had to put up with for seven years. It did very little for her interpersonal skills, and now, this wee slip of a girl who breaks into tears when she thinks of her mother? It makes Stephanie uncomfortable, even if she does like Alex well enough.

  _Get over it_ , Stephanie thinks, patting her arm. _You aren’t the only mortal to get fucked over._

“I’m going to go bathe,” Stephanie says instead, and flees the room, glad to be away from those tears. She draws enough hot water to fill their large basin and strips down, sponging herself with the coarse soap bars, stretching and easing her thighs.

 God, but she misses showers.

 By the time she’s done, Alex is well asleep again. Stephanie slips on the standard issue nightgown and climbs into bed, setting the manual alarm clock Sean gave her for her birthday last year.

 Then she sleeps, deeply, struggling to reclaim the rest none of them have had for over a decade now.

 

-

 

The bells wake her before the alarm clock can; deep, menacing, ringing tones that shake her awake, a staccato vibration in her bones.

 Stephanie lays there, staring at the ceiling. Friday mornings are the worst, always. Scrubbing at her eyes, she sits up and peers out the tiny window, watching all the sorcerers file into the Church, the only building in the entire town that looks new, that’s regularly, caringly cleaned.

 She may detest sorcerers but she’s thankful the mortals are deemed too dirty to enter the Churches. Partly because she’s always found sermons painfully boring, but mainly because to her - like all the mortals, and anyone with sense in their head- the Church of the Faceless is a dark, terrifying thing. Its disciples, shaven headed acolytes with their wrists bound in chains almost comical and their wheezing, rattled voices, their red eyes…

 Stephanie scratches almost absent mindedly at the loyalty sigil on on her thigh, the circle with the dot orbiting it, carved painlessly into her flesh when she was only seventeen, and thinks of her rumbling stomach.

 She pulls on her overalls and shirt, shrugs her jacket on and carefully ties her hair back into a plait, rubbing a tiny bit of olive oil Alex snuck her through it to keep it soft. If she leaves now she can get the first round of breakfast and be at China’s early… and maybe get home before sundown, for once.

 She steps up onto one of the carriages and squeezes in.

 “Sorry, Jemima,” she grunts, accidentally elbowing one of the older women crammed in there. She gets a huff of distaste and Stephanie rolls her eyes openly, turning to look out the window as the carriage glides along, coming to the food hall three stops later. Stephanie hops off and joins the line, taking a tray once she’s in the building. As she passes through the entrance, she feels the loyalty sigil grow warm on her leg, marking her movement and arrival for breakfast.

 “Morning, Valkyrie,” a cheerful voice says, and she turns, smiles at Old Sam, who runs the library- both official and contraband.

 “Morning, Sam,” she says, shuffling forward in the line. “How’s the pipes going?”

 He winks and taps the side of his nose. “Ask me again tomorrow.”

 “I’ll hold you to that,” she promises him, hoping he’s managed to get a hold of the third _Harry Potter_ book, and turns to the food server, who lumps a spoon of watery scrambled eggs onto her plate with several shrivelled fried tomatoes and a piece of -blessedly- fresh bread.

 “Cheers,” she grumbles, taking a fork and knife. The only free spot is next to Theresa and Bubblegum, and Stephanie mentally steels herself before sitting down, focusing on chomping through her breakfast as quickly as possible.

 “Oh, look,” Theresa sneers. Stephanie ignores this. She likes to think she’s not a child anymore, but something about these two are so ultimately punchable, so reminiscent of her cousins during their terrible teens. “Miss High and Mighty joining us lowly mortals at breakfast.”

 “I feel blessed,” Bubblegum chirps, a nasty undertone to the voice her chosen name was (stupidly) taken from.

 “Don’t get excited,” Stephanie mutters between bites. “It’s not going to be a regular occurance.”

 “Oh, look at her, all high and mighty. I wonder what it’s like working with Sorrows, in a warm room?”

 “Positively _awful_ ,” Bubblegum chirps.

 “Is this because Will asked me out on a date last week?” Stephanie says calmly, spearing a tomato. Theresa turns red. Through her food, Stephanie continues, “I wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole, don’t worry. He’s all yours.”

 She raises the plate, sliding the last sliver of food into her mouth, burps (loudly, in their faces) and leaves before Theresa remembers how to use her tongue.

 

-

 

Today, China has the approved radio turned off. Stephanie doesn’t know how she does this; the radios are turned on like clockwork every day from the Head Sanctuary in Dublin. But as Stephanie walks in, the room is blessedly free from classical music and instead, soft, crooning jazz plays. It’s such a treat that Stephanie physically relaxes, ambling through the foyer past China’s assistant and through the primary workshop, where several beginner level Carvers work on pieces of carriages, doorways, their work sloppy but effective.

 Through the second workshop, where the intermediates work on repairing the hand held devices that took the place of phones long ago, and then she climbs the stairs and the door slides open, admitting her into China’s private workshop.

 China is there today, the only other person in the room, in another tailored pantsuit that looks distinctly more comfortable (and pretty) than Stephanie’s designated overalls and shirt.

 “I spent all morning correcting your work,” she tells Stephanie crisply, flipping up the magnifying lenses.

 “You said only a week ago that I was up to your standard,” Stephanie protests, hanging her bag up, taking up her jacket. Real annoyance flairs in her at this, like she hasn’t spent more than half her life learning these stupid symbols-

 “That was for the communication system,” China says. “This is a little more important.”

 “It would help if I knew what I was _doing_ ,” Stephanie grumbles. “It’s like you’re asking me to write a specific story with specific characters, but I don’t know who they _are._ ”

 “You’re a mortal,” China reminds her. “You’re lucky to be on my team at all, let alone on this project.”

 “I didn’t _ask_ you to,” Stephanie says under her breath, before she can stop herself.

 “What was that?”

 “Nothing,” Stephanie says quickly, picking up her usual pen and goggles. “Can I use a stool this time?”

 China gives her a trademark Look, and motions towards the table where another stool sits beneath it. Stephanie gratefully drags one over and China hands her the schematics for today. Stephanie glances back down at the schematics and frowns. “China, what _are_ these? I’ve never even _seen_ half of these symbols.”

 China’s lip quirks. “They’re what Latin is to English.”

 “Old?”

 She manages to get a small laugh from China for that one. “You aren’t wrong.”

 “These ones look like they’re to do with… transportation?” Stephanie flips the goggles down, checking the angle of the curves carefully. “Transportation to somewhere _very_ far away.”

 “I knew I took you on for a reason,” China says. She carefully points at symbols in succession, but doesn’t say anything, almost as if she’s showing Stephanie clues to a puzzle. Stephanie frowns. The pattern she’s pointed out is decidedly… unusual.

 “Copy that pattern in to the matching area,” China says, checking the elegant watch on her wrist. “I’ll make a start on this part here.”

 They both get to work; Stephanie is in the middle of checking the first symbol’s measurements with a pair of callipers when China’s assistant opens the door, looking as frustrated as she’s ever seen him.

 China looks up, clearly about to say something sharp, but stops when Moloch comes into the room, as balding and sinister as ever. Valkyrie carefully stays looking at her measurements, but China stands up, face politely cool.

 “Good morning,” China says. “How nice of you to knock.”

 Moloch ignores this, gesturing to someone still coming up the staircase. Another vampire comes in carrying a small but clearly heavy hunk of metal that Stephanie can see from the corner of her eye. China regards it with flat distaste.

 “It broke,” Moloch says roughly. “You better fix it. Serpine’s orders.”

 “I knew vampires weren’t human,” China says pleasantly, “But I wasn’t aware they lacked a grasp of basic etiquette.”

 Stephanie coughs, staring at the symbols. She can feels Moloch’s gaze burning into her back.

 “In any case,” she continues, examining the metal, “This isn’t a fault on my end.” She gestures at something. “This scratch has bisected this symbol, rendering the chain useless.”

 “What scratch?” Moloch says, sounding frustrated. Stephanie rolls her eyes.

 “Right here. So small as to be hardly noticeable, unless, of course, you looked.”

 “Don’t backtalk me,” Moloch spits. “Fix it.”

 “But of course,” China says sweetly. “If you come back later this afternoon-”

 “I need it _now._ ”

 There’s a long silence.

 “Please take a seat,” China says.

 “There aren’t any seats,” Moloch grumbles.

 Stephanie closes her eyes, enjoying her last few seconds of comfort.

 “Valkyrie,” China says, somehow making the command sound like something that might, if she strained her ears, be an apology.

 Stephanie stands up, and drags the stool over to Moloch. Up close, he’s as ugly as she remembers, those gashes in his neck smelling strongly of rust.

 “Hey there,” he says, slimy and greasy, eyes travelling up and down her form. She doesn’t respond.

 “She’s as polite as ever,” the older vampire says, spitting.

 “Valkyrie is employed as a Carver,” China says with a smile, kneeling in front of the metal cube that the younger vampire places on a nearby table.  “There’s nothing in her contract about being nice.”

 Moloch, who seems unable to think of a retort to this, crosses his arms and sits quietly until China is done.

 Stephanie eases back into the crouching position her body knows almost better than walking, and loses herself in her work and the soft jazz. She always hated languages in school, but sigils border on art and require a significant amount of interpretation in ways that spoken languages do not, a _challenge_ , and China’s never treated her the way most adults did, like someone soft and breakable.

 “Finished,” China says, and Stephanie can hear that smile is all teeth. “You may go, Mr. Moloch.”

 “Bless,” Moloch says, the scraping of wood as he stands up. “Pick it up, Michael, there we are.”

 “Perhaps be a bit more careful,” China advises him. “It would be disastrous if one of your fledglings were to escape into Dublin.”

 “Sorcerers can defend themselves,” Moloch sneers.

 “I meant the mortals that unfortunately have to support your… parasitic community,” China says, no smile, now just teeth. “Good day.”

 And then she closes the door in his face.

 “What a dislikeable man,” China murmurs. “You may have your chair back, Valkyrie.”

 Stephanie drags it back over.

 “What was that box?” she dares to asks China, stretching her fingers.

 “A shield generator of sorts,” China replies, taking her seat on her side of the arch. “Designed to contain newly made vampires and prevent them from… causing trouble.”

 “Are they as scary as everyone says?” Stephanie asks. There are always whispers of how dangerous vampires are, how feral, monstrous. Once, there was a man in the plumbing team with ragged long scars down his face, who boasted he barely made it out alive from such an encounter, that the vampire looked like a monster unimaginable, all white skin and jagged fangs.

 “They’re terribly rude, is what they are,” China says severely, deftly avoiding giving Stephanie an answer. “Expecting me to drop my work at a moment’s notice.”

 “Didn’t you say yourself it was important that device be fixed?”

 China gives her a Look that says, quite sharply, _shut up_. Stephanie gets back to work.

 

-

 

On Sunday, Stephanie wakes up and lays in bed for a while. Alex snores a couple of feet away, and Stephanie just relishes in the bed, the covers, the soft sun coming through the window. Her one day off for the week, and she plans to spend it how she always does; with her father.

 The late morning air is crisp on her face, and she sticks her hands into her jacket pockets, enjoying the sun on her back. Her favourite day of the week, when Haggard is almost how she remembers it, people bustling and talking and doing what people _did_ , before the Uprising.  

 She stops in at the one bakery in town and trades one of her precious spare food stamps for a small cake, just enough for two, and carries it across town like she’s holding a newborn child, snapping at people who aren’t watching where they’re going.  She almost drops it when a dog sprints across her path, but regains her balance before she can trip, and climbs up the steps to her father’s apartment block, letting herself in. The apartment smells only a little better than hers, but the stairwell is sticky; Stephanie grimaces as she wipes her fingers of a suspicious substance on the railing and is grateful when she comes to her father’s floor.

   She knocks on the door, and Desmond Edgley, beaming, tired, hungry, peers out at her.

  “And who are you, young lady?” he says very seriously.

  “No one important,” Stephanie says deferentially. “But I bring you a fine gift.”

  “Let me see it,” he commands, opening the box and peering at the little sponge. “Hmm. This is certainly a cake.” He pokes a finger into the icing.

  “Hey!” Stephanie protests.

  “Mm. Tastes like a cake. But _is_ it a cake?”

  Stephanie, laughing, closes the box and shoves him aside gently so she can step in, set the box down. They give each other a big hug, and Desmond sets to pouring some of his prized tea while Stephanie carefully cuts the cake into slices.

 “Where’s Edward today?” she asks, motioning at the other bed, empty of its usual inhabitant.

 “Out visiting his sister. I may have neglected to mention to him you were bringing cake.”

 “Dad!” Stephanie gasps, mock horrified. “How dare you hide your offerings from the Faceless!”

 Desmond exhales, looking worried. “Don’t joke about that, Steph. Diana got sent to re-education last week.”

 Stephanie feels like the wind has been punched out of her, and sits down. “ _What?_ ”

 Diana, a sweet older woman who used to sneak her extra bread rolls, who was quiet and kept her head down-

 “Apparently she was overheard making a… derogatory remark about the Emperor,” Desmond says quietly, steeping the tea bags. “She got sent off on Thursday.”

 Stephanie doesn’t say anything, too shocked.

 “I’m just saying… be careful, okay?” Desmond says, handing her a mug. “I know Mistress Sorrows treats you pretty well, but she’s still on the same side. You just never know.”

 They sit in silence for a bit, Stephanie’s mind still on how only last Sunday, she said hello to Diana on her way up to her father’s room.

 Desmond clears his throat. “How’s the new roommate?

 Stephanie sighs, grateful to be talking about something else. “She’s nice but she’s such a child, Dad. She needs to grow up.”

 “Isn’t she only nineteen?” Desmond says, not unkindly.

 Stephanie makes a face into her tea. “Perhaps.”

 “And how old are you, daughter dearest?”

 “Twenty six,” she mutters.

 “Maybe she could be the sister we never got to give you,” Desmond suggests, sipping from his mug. A soft smile spreads across his face. “Your mother would have loved another baby girl.”

 Stephanie nods sagely, as if her heart isn’t clenching. “I’d like someone to boss about, that’s for sure.”

 “I’ve heard babies can learn simple tricks,” Desmond says thoughtfully, taking a bite of cake. “Perhaps you could have trained her to fetch the newspaper?”

 “As long as I didn’t have to change the diapers.”

 “No, no,” Desmond says dismissively, waving his hand. “That’s what midwives are for.”

 “Mm. You know the midwife doesn’t stay with you for the next eighteen years, don’t you, Dad?”

 He looks horrified. “But who changes the nappies?”

 Stephanie squints at him. “Who… who changed _mine_?”

 “I wouldn’t know,” Desmond declares. “That whole part of my life was a stress induced blur. Our dog, perhaps?’

 Stephanie wisely decides not to remind him they didn’t have a dog, and the rest of the day passes with little incident. As she leaves, though, Desmond looks a little sadder than usual, a little lonelier.

 He hugs her goodbye and says, gently, “I love you very much, Stephanie.”

 “I love you too, Dad.”

 His eyes look wet. “You would have made a wonderful big sister.”

 Struck dumb by tears of her own, she nods, and they hug again, and then she goes home.

 

-

 

Alex is out late that night, likely with the black haired boy Stephanie’s seen her with when she thinks no one is looking. The evening gets later, and she still isn’t back yet, and Stephanie can only hope Alex is being careful. Most of the older sorcerers turn a blind eye to this sort of thing, but there are a few newer, younger sorcerers full of piss and vinegar who were transferred here recently who have made a habit of looking for reasons to assign infractions.

 She lays in bed, in that empty room, a breeze coming through the window she can’t be bothered to close, trying to stop her mind retracting those old pathways, those old memories, playing like an old film projector. She doesn’t even have any photos of Melissa Edgley, no letters, or drawings, _nothing_ to show she even existed besides the words of her father.

 Stephanie squeezes her eyes shut, pretending as if she hasn’t begun to forget the face of her mother.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People are disappearing, the Captain won't stop interfering, and Stephanie can't find her damn pen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you guys for the lovely comments and all the kudos! this chapter is where things start Moving!
> 
> also, because i just realised I hadn't done this in previous chapters, this fic's title comes from "Sing ot the Moon" by Laura Mvula, if anyone's interested. 
> 
> and thanks again to the wonderful mooncactus for betaing!!!

Three more people disappear over the next two weeks, and the hustle bustle of life in Haggard becomes cramped, tense. People huddle in groups as they walk through the streets, mothers holding tight to the few children left- as if that will stop Serpine from snatching people from their beds. The morning after the third person disappears, Stephanie opens her door, ready to go to China’s studio, and there’s a woman there. Her eyes are mismatched and her smile is kind, and Stephanie doesn’t like her one bit.

 “Good morning,” she says. “Are you Valkyrie?” 

 Stephanie nods, keeping a hand on the door. “What do you want?” she asks, a bit ruder than she means to be in her half asleep state. Perhaps  _ too _ rude, as something in the woman’s eyes turn cold; she opens her coat and shows her a silver brooch- the insignia of the Faceless Ones. Stephanie stands up straighter and immediately regrets her tone of voice.

 “My name is Davina Marr,” the woman says with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, closing her jacket. She has a Boston accent of all things, an accent Stephanie hasn’t heard for so long that it takes a few seconds for her to realise this woman is American. “The Emperor has transferred myself and several other sorcerers here to oversee the assignment yourself and Ms. Sorrows have been working on.”

 Stephanie nods, acutely aware that Alex hasn’t come home  _ again _ , and that if this woman pokes around, the girl could get in a lot of trouble.

 “Since I’m new here,” Marr continues, a veritable beacon of warmth, “I was hoping you could show me to the studio? I like getting the lay of the land whenever I’m assigned somewhere new.” 

 Stephanie steps out and closes the door. “Of course,” she says, confused but not foolish enough to question her.

 “Where’s your roommate, sweetheart?” Marr asks. 

 Stephanie looks at her for a couple of seconds. “She left early,” she says, matching that smile. “Shall we go?”

 Marr blinks slowly, and Stephanie knows in that second what type of person Marr is, with that long, hard gaze, that insincere smile. 

 A predator.

 

-

 

It’s been a long time since Stephanie has had the luck to see China’s charms in full effect, and she takes great pleasure in the way Marr’s face slackens as she shakes China’s hand.

 “Welcome to Haggard, Davina,” China says warmly, graciously. Stephanie is sure China knew the other woman was arriving today, because she’s wearing the long, form fitting skirt with the slit up the side, and the tight blouse that only comes out when someone needs to be coerced.   

 Marr swallows.

 “Come,” China commands, and they follow her through the studios.

 “As you can see, we run a very tight ship,” China waves a hand at the rows of Carvers. “No doubt the Emperor has informed you; I supply the majority of sigil-based technology to the Empire.” She gestures to one of the intermediate Carvers, a sorcerer named Nathaniel Summers. While mostly immune by now to China’s charms, Nathaniel still stumbles over himself to stand by her side.

 “Nathaniel, dear, tell Captain Marr what I have you working on. Give her the tour, won’t you?”

 Nathaniel nods several times far too quickly, and China leaves Marr with him, taking Stephanie with her up to her private studio.

 Once they leave Marr’s line of sight, the warmth slides from China’s face like oil from a pan.

 “Who is she?” Stephanie asks.

 “Apparently, Haggard’s citizens are so important their disappearances warrant investigation,” China says, which makes Stephanie frown; if Serpine isn’t dragging these people to re-education, then who is? “Marr is the leader of his little team.” 

 “She showed up at my apartment this morning,” Stephanie tells her. China’s mouth twists, like a drop of lemon juice has found its way to her tongue.

 “She’s an unorthodox woman. Do not think she will be as lenient with you as I am.”

 The elevator doors open, and the archway stands before them.

 “Back to work,” China says crisply, and leaves Stephanie there.

 “Thanks,” Stephanie mutters once she’s sure China is out of earshot, and drags her stool over, consulting her plans.

 They get new sorcerers every now and then, but there’s the steady few who have been at Haggard for almost a decade, who look the other way when Old Sam sneakily lends out a new book, or when Duck bakes an extra cake for someone’s birthday. They may not be friendly, but they don’t leap at the chance to make infractions, either. Stephanie can only assume because it’s a lot of effort for little gain. So she’s a little worried, wary of these new sorcerers, sorcerers who don’t have the miniscule amount of reluctant trust built up over the years, who don’t have a routine and symbiosis with Haggard’s citizens. 

 Perhaps China is wary too, Stephanie thinks, because today the radio is playing only music preapproved by the Empire; strictly classical, and it drags the hours by, kicking and screaming.

 

-

 

The next morning, Stephanie goes to get breakfast as usual. Unlike the usual messy crowded line, it’s strict, single file. Two intimidating sorcerers she doesn’t recognise stand at the entrance. There’s no excited chatting, none of the morning noise that’s she’s so used to; dead silence, people fidgeting in lines and keeping to themselves.

 Stephanie falls in behind Harvey Spinner, who, despite his terrible Taken name, Stephanie once dated for a few months when she was nineteen.

 “What’s going on?” she murmurs to him.

 “They beat up someone who asked for seconds,” he says back in a low voice.

 “Who?”

 “A young guy, Forest something.”

 The name means nothing to her, but sparks the image of a dark haired boy. Stephanie hopes it isn’t Alex’s boyfriend; her constant swings between tolerable and sad are hard enough to deal with.

 “Quiet back there,” one of the sorcerers by the door snaps, and Harvey falls silent. Stephanie almost says something, but holds herself back.

 Inside, it isn’t as bad; hushed conversations fill the hall, and Stephanie and Harvey find a spot near the back, where he tells her more.

 “... so he asked them why he couldn’t have another egg, since Greta usually has extra anyway, and they didn’t even say anything- one of them just pulled out this nasty looking baton, like the old London policemen used to carry, and whacked him across the face with it.”

 Stephanie’s lip curls. “Assholes.”

 “ _ Sshh _ ,” Harvey says urgently, and she rolls her eyes.

 “What are they going to do? Abduct me in the middle of breakfast?”

 “Don’t be stupid, Steph,” he says, brows drawing into a furrow over that nose she used to daydream about. She snorts.

 “Whatever,” she says dismissively, cramming the last egg in her mouth, and standing up. When she turns around, Marr is there, and Stephanie almost jumps in shock, unsure if she heard her.

 Marr has that smile that Stephanie is already beginning to despise. “Valkyrie. I thought I might find you here.”

 Before she can stop herself, in a tone far too insolent, Stephanie says, “Yeah, who would have guessed that I’d be here for breakfast like every other mortal in my district?”

 Out of the corner of her eye she can see Harvey staring down at his plate. That smile Marr has plastered across her face turns a little colder.

 “I was hoping you could take me to Ms. Sorrows’ studios again. I’m not very good with directions,” she says, and Stephanie nods, keeping her mouth shut. Marr follows her out of the dining hall, almost close enough that it’s annoying, almost stepping on the back of her shoes the entire way there.

-

 

Two days later, another person disappears; Stephanie knows earlier than everyone else because Alex doesn’t come home that night, and Marr shows up at four in the morning to tell her so and ask a lot of questions that seem to make Stephanie involved in the whole event.

 “So you’re certain Alex isn’t affiliated with the… resistance?”

 “She’s a country bumpkin,” Stephanie says. This is the third time Marr has asked from her seat on the edge of Stephanie’s bed. “She was too busy crying over her parents to join some imaginary revolution.”

 She adds the “imaginary” on there to placate Marr, but also because the rumours have been floating around for so long they’ve long since lost any ring of truth. Perhaps Marr is pleased by this, because she nods to herself. 

 “I hope you’re telling the truth, sweetheart,” Marr says sadly. “We just want to find Alex, and make sure she’s safe and sound.”

 The snort escapes her before she can stop it, and Marr swings her head to look at her. 

 “Am I amusing you, Valkyrie?” She says. “Is your roommate missing funny to you?”

 Stephanie crosses her arms. “Of course not.”

 “I’ve asked people about you, sweetheart,” Marr says. “And the consensus is that people don’t like you very much.”

 “Jealousy is an ugly thing,” Stephanie smiles. 

 “And arrogance is uglier,” Marr says. She stands up, and looks at her coldly. For the first time, Stephanie feels she’s looking at Marr’s genuine face, a face full of contempt. “I’ll be keeping my eye on you, Valkyrie.”

 Stephanie doesn’t quite know what to say to that, and Marr smiles. It’s full of teeth. Stephanie likes it even less than her usual one. The woman leaves, and Stephanie realises it’s time to get up for breakfast.

 She goes to work afterwards, exhausted, back aching, struggling to keep her eyes open and her head clear, but the image of Alex’s teary eyes keeps surfacing in her mind’s eye. Stephanie rubs her forehead as a headache comes on, born partially from fatigue but also from guilt. She should have probably been nicer to Alex, but who is  _ stupid _ enough to go out late at night just fool around?

 It’s not Stephanie’s fault, at  _ all _ , she tells herself. Alex is an  _ adult _ . It’s not Stephanie’s job to babysit her. 

 Desmond’s disapproving, gentle face appears in her mind and she frowns.

 The rest of the day passes without incident. She completes two more sigils, particularly complex ones, and is in the middle of the third when China clears her throat.

 Stephanie sighs, and sits back so China can examine her work.

 “Not bad,” China says, and Stephanie blinks. “A few things I’ll need to correct, but you could have done- and  _ have done _ \- worse.”

 “Thank you,” Stephanie says, glancing up at her.

 “Don’t thank me yet,” China replies. “You’re behind schedule. Another late night for you, it seems.”

 Stephanie groans.

 “How unfortunate,” an American voice says. Stephanie forces down a grunt of annoyance, and before China turns around, she sees a very brief expression of distaste.

 “How can I help you, Davina?” China says. Stephanie can hear the charm in her voice, and keeps her eyes down, getting back to work. “I can’t imagine our work is very interesting.”

 “What could be more interesting than a mere mortal contributing to one of the most important pieces of technology in our Empire?” Marr says, the click clack of her heels as she comes closer. The noise grates on Stephanie’s nerves.

 “Perhaps,” China allows. “But she’s a Carver, just like any other.”

 Marr makes a polite noise. “I do have to wonder why you chose a mortal over any one of your talented sorcerers you have at your disposal.”

 Stephanie has wondered too for a long time; when she was younger, more impetuous, she even asked. China, in typical fashion, gives her a different answer each time.

 “It has a delicious irony, don’t you think?” China says. Stephanie’s brow furrow, her work slowing. She isn’t sure what that means. Marr just laughs.

 “You have a wicked sense of humor, Ms. Sorrows,” she says.

 “Please, call me China,” China says, and Stephanie rolls her eyes at the coyness in that tone. She can hear Marr take a step closer, and they have a quiet, clearly flirtatious conversation, as if she isn’t right there, uncomfortable. The sheer disrespect makes her lip curl. 

 Sorcerers. 

 She narrows her focus to a pinpoint, trying to ignore China’s incredibly out of character giggles, and then Marr, thank  _ god _ , leaves.

 “That was quite the performance,” she mutters.

 “We use what we have to get what we want,” China replies, returning to hover at the edge of Stephanie’s vision. “And that angle is off by approximately three degrees, my dear, you’ll need to start again.”

 Stephanie huffs, wiping the chalk off with a nearby rag.

 

-

 

Marr starts showing up more and more often; walking with her to China’s studio becomes a painful obligation each morning, and she even “coincidentally” runs into Stephanie one Sunday on her way to Desmond’s apartment. 

 She wants something, but Stephanie doesn’t understand  _ what _ . Alex is still nowhere to be found, and Marr seems particularly uninterested in looking for her.

 “She’s annoying the hell out of me,” Stephanie says, stabbing her fork into the quiche her dad purchased. It’s cold but still hearty, full of fatty bacon and some small tomatoes. “I don’t know what she wants.”

 “Not your charm, that’s for sure,” Desmond says.

 “And she’s always spending time with China, I feel like she’s  _ shadowing _ me, Dad, like she’s waiting for me to just trip up.”

 “You haven’t been doing anything stupid, have you?” Desmond asks anxiously.

 “No more than usual,” Stephanie mutters.

 “Shockingly,” Desmond muses, “That doesn’t reassure me.” He serves himself another slice of the quiche. “Has your roommate turned up yet?”

 Stephanie sighs. “No. I don’t want to talk about it, it just makes me feel bad.”

 “Well, it’s not your fault,” Desmond says reasonably. “So why would you feel bad?”

 Stephanie looks at her plate.  _ Arrogant, _ Marr sneers. “I probably should have been nicer, I guess. Maybe.”

 “She could still turn up yet,” he says. 

 “It’s been almost a week,” Stephanie says reluctantly. “Marr thinks I’m involved, somehow.”

 “Don’t give her a reason to.” Desmond’s voice is serious. “Those new sorcerers aren’t like Brett, or Ruby. They’re out for blood.”

 “They’re assholes,” Stephanie says. “They beat up some  _ kid  _ because he asked for seconds-”

 “ _ Shh, _ ” Desmond says immediately. Stephanie rolls her eyes, but relents. “I don’t know what I’d do if they took you too, Steph,” he says softly, and puts his hand over hers, and after a moment his face turns mischievous. “I’ll have to trade your mother’s necklace for weapons and invade Dublin.” She laughs, glances at it, a glint of gold poking out from his t-shirt. Strictly speaking, he shouldn’t have it, but he’s gotten away with it for years now, thanks to a few well traded bribes. Stephanie wishes she could wear it, but the sigils marking China’s doorstep are fair more strict on what leaves and enters than any other building in town- besides the sorcerers’ apartments, of course. 

 Stephanie pats his hand reassuringly. “I’m not going anywhere, Dad. Who else is going to feed me on Sundays?”

 “Oh, cheers.” 

 

-

 

As Stephanie works, and Marr spends what feels like every waking moment China’s studio, it becomes increasingly obvious how little Marr likes her, beneath all those fake smiles, that false warmth. Little things; after Marr leaves the room, Stephanie’s scalpel pen has been moved to some hard to see hiding spot; she “accidentally” trips over Stephanie’s lunch, even though it’s right next to her stool and easy to see. Stephanie can’t fathom why Marr seems to be going out of her way to be so petty; beyond her initial rudeness when they first met, Stephanie has no idea what she’s done to warrant this attention. At first, she just says nothing, but after a week of this, China comes in to find Stephanie pulling entire shelves aside, fuming.

 “What on  _ earth _ are you doing?” China says sharply. 

 “My  _ pen _ ,” Stephanie says, huffing as she slides the heavy bookcase along the polished floor, checking behind it, “is  _ missing.” _

 “You are scratching my floorboards,” China says dangerously. Stephanie grunts, stops. “And how could your scalpel pen have gone missing? You haven’t left the room since you arrived.”

 Stephanie’s nostrils flare. “Marr’s done something with it, she’s been doing this all  _ week _ -”

 “Enough.” China pauses, looking exceedingly unimpressed. “Are you certain you haven’t simply misplaced it?”

 “Well, I had my pen when she came in, I put the pen down to get a drink, and then she left, and now it’s gone, for the fourth time this  _ week _ .  _ Gee _ , I wonder where it is!”

 She’s playing a dangerous game, talking to China like this, and she knows it. But she’s so  _ sick _ of Marr and her passive aggressive  _ bullshit _ , her constant intimidation tactics-

 “There is no need to speak to me like that, Valkyrie.”

 Stephanie instantly feels blood rush to her cheeks. China’s tone is not unlike a parents, and she swallows her anger.

 “Sorry,” she mutters. China presents her with a new scalpel pen taken from her jacket, but it isn’t worn perfectly smooth like the one Stephanie uses, is a tiny bit thicker around the hand grip than she prefers. 

 It makes her furious.

 “I was not exaggerating when I advised you to be careful with Marr,” China says, very quietly. “She’s informed me that once we complete the archway, she will be transporting it back to the Emperor. I advise you work quickly, and hold your tongue. Do I make myself clear?” 

 Stephanie’s jaw clenches even as she’s bewildered by China’s tone- reprimanding, yes, but not angry, almost…  _ urgent _ .

 “Yes, China.”

 “Good. Now, show me what you’ve done.”

 She stands behind Stephanie as the two of them go over the chain of sigils, checking angles, depth, orientation. Learning the language of sigils was initially like pulling teeth for Stephanie, but over the years, it’s become second hand, her keen eye and quick mind primed for it. She still doesn’t know  _ these  _ sigils though, ones she’s never even seen before, incredibly complex shapes that are comprised of dozens upon dozens of smaller sigils she knows much more well.

 The chain seems to involve layers of movement. She knows this one focuses around space, and that smaller sigil is involved in magic that rends, tears, opens. But that sigil, the scores of lines and angled curves, is incorporated into communication. 

 Most of the devices she’s worked on, like the self moving wheels the trams use, or the communication devices the patrolling sorcerers use, involve a dozen basic sigils used in patterns to create complex grammar. But this archway is beyond her skill level, a level of complexity she will take years more to understand. 

 She says as much to China absently, corrects the sketch she is doing for the next carving, and China hums.

 “I think you will be surprised by how much you know,” she says lightly. “Using sigils is as much about imagination as it is rote memorisation and comprehension. The latter is simply hard work and time; the former, unfortunately, appears to be something my other Carvers are in short supply of.”

 Stephanie doesn’t quite know what to say to that.

 

-

 

The news spreads quickly when Old Sam is arrested and hauled out of the village. Stephanie first hears of it over dinner, because Bubblegum is, in typical Bubblegum fashion, talking shit.

 “Stupid old man,” the blond girl is saying. “I’m glad he’s gone, he had awful B.O.”

 “It was silly to think he could get away with those books for much longer,” an older woman who Stephanie doesn’t know is saying, a little more sympathetically. At first, she doesn’t know who they’re talking about, and isn’t listening too hard.

 “Well,  _ duh _ he couldn’t,” Theresa sneers. “What do you expect when Marr is hanging around like a bad smell? Old Sam should have packed up his stinky old book box the moment she walked in the door.”

 Stephanie turns her head. “What happened to Old Sam?” she asks.

 “You didn’t hear?” Theresa says, picking her teeth. “Marr hauled him off for re-education. The moron left a copy of  _ 1984 _ on his desk in the library.”

 Stephanie’s stomach drops.

 “Ironic,” Bubblegum says with a high pitched laugh.

 “I thought irony was when the audience gets it, but the character doesn't?” Theresa frowns.

 “Oh, my god,” Stephanie says under her breath.

 “No, that’s just bad writing,” Bubblegum replies.

 “When was this?” Stephanie says loudly, right as Theresa’s about to say something as equally useless.

 “This morning,” Theresa says. “Why do you care?”

 “Because now I’ll never get a hold of the next  _ Harry Potter,”  _ she says crisply, hiding how her heart is a little heavier, and turns back to her plate.

 She hadn’t seen Marr at all this morning. At the time, she had welcomed the reprieve from her hanging over her shoulders, asking stupid questions, but now, she wishes Marr  _ had _ been there. She liked Old Sam. It’s a shame she’ll never see him again.

 “Better watch yourself, Valkyrie,” Theresa calls. “You might be next, if we’re lucky.”

 “It’d be worth it to never have to look at your ugly mug again,” Stephanie says without even looking at her. 

 “My, my,” Marr says, approaching them. “Such language.”

 Theresa shuts up and Bubblegum looks down at her plate so quick it’s a wonder she doesn’t bury her head in her soup.

 “Can’t we all just get along?” Marr continues. Stephanie hates her, hates that stupid accent and how those vowels seem to get stuck in the back of her stupid throat. “It killed me to have to take poor Samuel away from you all, but rules are rules.”

 The whole hall is listening now. 

 “Yes,” Marr continues, that warmth retreating back from her voice, hardness leaking in. “Rules are rules.”

 Stephanie abruptly stands up, and everyone, including Marr, looks at her.

 “Is everything okay, sweetheart?” Marr says, too loud in the stillness. Stephanie locks eyes with her, feeling her fingers dig into her tray of half eaten food. “You haven’t finished your dinner.”

 “I’m not hungry,” she says flatly. A long moment passes, and Marr’s smile dips. Stephanie turns away, puts her tray in the cart, and leaves, as if she has any power in where she goes and who she speaks to.

 The next day, Marr spends the entire day sitting in the far corner of the studio, those cold mismatched eyes never leaving her.

 Two days later, the next Monday, she comes home to find her entire room ransacked; clothes thrown everywhere, her furniture askew, her hairbrush- one of the few luxury objects she owns- snapped on the floor, as if someone wasn’t looking where they were stepping. Her tiny bottle of oil she uses on the ends of her hair is empty, sitting on her bedside table like a threat. Stephanie grinds her teeth so hard she gives herself a headache. Marr doesn’t mention it the next day, but her smile is hard and smug.

 

-

 

It all comes to a head that Sunday, a week full of similar aggravations later. She doesn’t see Marr all morning as she makes her way across town, jumpy with annoyance to the point where she’s checking every corner. It’s her turn to bring food this time, and she’s carrying a small pavlova, because she doesn’t have enough food stamps left to purchase anything more substantial. 

 She greets her father with a kiss on the cheek, and they’re into their second slice when there’s a knock on the door.

 “That’ll probably be Edward,” Desmond says sadly, getting up. “Now we’ll have to share with him.”

 “Give me a couple of seconds and there won’t be anything left,” Stephanie calls over her shoulder, grinning.

 “Don’t you  _ dare _ ,” Desmond says, outraged, as he lays his hand on the doorknob. “I’m not even halfway through  _ my  _ slice yet-”

 He stops mid sentence as he opens the door. Stephanie turns around when he doesn’t continue, and Davina Marr stands in the doorway, looking unbearably smug.

 “Uh,” Desmond says.

 “Are you Desmond Edgley?” she asks, flashing her badge. 

 “Yes,” he says, looking pale. She steps in, looking at Stephanie.

 “Valkyrie,” Marr smiles viciously. “How nice to see you. Just a routine check, nothing to be worried about.”

 “My father’s done nothing wrong,” Stephanie snaps, standing up. “I’m well within my rights to be here.”

 “Don’t,” Desmond murmurs.

 “Of course you are, sweetie,” Marr smiles. “I’m going to have to ask you and your father to stand against the wall while I sweep the room.”

 Desmond immediately does so; Stephanie takes a few seconds, deliberately finishing her cake and wiping her mouth. Those cold mismatched eyes watch her the whole time, until she’s next to her father.

 “Face the wall,” Marr commands, and they turn. “Hands behind your heads.” They raise their arms and listen to her rummage. Drawers slide open and close, the rustle of sheets. She moves into the bathroom, examining that too. Stephanie is extremely glad Desmond returned Sam’s books to him last week. She glances at her dad, looking furious; Desmond looks at her imploringly, and shakes his head.

 “Everything seems to be in order,” Marr says, coming out of the bathroom. “Except for this cake.”

 “I bought it for afternoon tea,” Desmond says, very quietly, before Stephanie can say anything. “I used my extra food stamps for it.”

 “Unfortunately, it’s not allowed,” Marr sighs, very apologetically. She picks up the quarter that’s left and throws it carelessly into the small waste bin next to Desmond’s bed. Cream splatters against the wall just above the bin and then falls into Desmond’s used tissues. Stephanie can feel the muscles clenching in her jaw. 

 Davina continues. “However, as a first time offence, I’ll let it slide.”

 “Thank you, Captain,” Desmond says, looking at the bin from his position against the wall. Stephanie fumes. 

 “Turn around, please,” Marr says, sounding almost bored. “I need to pat you down.”

 “ _ Why _ ?” Stephanie says in furious bemusement. Marr regards her lazily.

 “To make sure you don’t have any other contraband goods, of course.” She starts patting Stephanie down, being painfully thorough, checking her pockets, the lining of her rough shirt, even her jacket. Stephanie’s fists clench, but Marr can find nothing wrong and has to move onto Desmond.

 She checks his shoes, his trousers, moving up, and then makes a noise.

“Mr. Edgeley,” she says. “What is this?”

Her heart sinks as Marr reaches beneath the collar of her father’s shirt and pulls out the necklace. Her mother’s necklace.

 “My- it was my wife’s,” Desmond stutters. She gives him a kind, sad smile. “Please,” he says hoarsely.

 “I have to set a good example, Desmond,” she says. 

 “It’s all I have left of her,” he says quietly.

 “You’ll still have memories,” Marr laughs, and Stephanie watches as she undoes the clasp and pulls the fine gold chain from her father’s neck.

 “It’s quite pretty, isn’t it?” Marr says to her. “Oh, look at the heart pendant…  _ to the love of my life… _ how sweet…”

 Stephanie can feel her hands trembling. 

 The color is draining from Desmond’s face. “Please,” he says. She wraps the necklace in both fists.

 “Rules are rules,” she shrugs, a grin on her face, and breaks the chain in half.

 Stephanie roars and lunges and punches Marr in the  _ face _ . Desmond yells in horror, while the gold links bounce over the floor. Marr is only taken by surprise for a second, but it’s enough for Stephanie to break the other woman’s nose- and her knuckles. Desmond is too shocked to do anything, but Marr  _ laughs _ , a nasty burble of a thing through the blood running like a faucet from her nose, and blocks Stephanie’s clumsy follow up punch, flipping her over with some sort of  _ krav maga _ move. Now Marr is on top, and she’s a lot heavier than she looks.

 “Finally,” she sneers. Her blood falls on Stephanie’s face, hot and sticky, and she rabbit punches Stephanie so hard she momentarily blacks out. “I’ve been wanting to do that ever since you opened your door.”

 Stephanie coughs, slapping ineffectually at Marr’s fists as the woman punches her again. Desmond cries out and advances, reaching to try and drag Marr off her, but the woman throws out a hand; Desmond flies against the wall and holds there.

 “Leave him alone,” Stephanie gasps. Her eye is swelling up, and she feels like her head weighs a thousand tons. 

 “As if I’d even bother with him,” Marr scoffs. She wipes her nose, the blood smearing across her face like war paint. “He’s just a useless, boring little man, but  _ you _ . You swan about acting like the queen of town all because Sorrows fucked your uncle, felt like she owed him, and took you under her wing.” Marr grins down at her. “You’re  _ much _ more fun to hit.”

 Stephanie’s head is spinning, and none of that makes sense to her. Marr climbs off her, and crosses to her father, examining him as he’s pinned against the wall. 

 “Your daughter is going away, Desmond,” she tells him. “You’re never going to see her again.”

 And then, seemingly just because she  _ can _ , she punches him in the stomach. The air drops him and he lays, groaning, on the floor.

 Stephanie isn’t even aware of getting up, but she’s staggering over when Marr turns around calmly.

 “I think not,” Marr laughs, and opens her jacket, presses the middle circle of her badge. Stephanie can feel her sigil warm on her leg, and her heart sinks. The loyalty sigil. Of  _ course  _ Marr can activate it.

 “Shut up, and stand still,” Marr says with a smile, finger still against the insignia. 

 Except Stephanie feels no urge to do so. The sigil is warm, but it’s not  _ doing  _ anything. She’s seen the sigil in use before, seen how once activated, the victim becomes stiff and unwieldy, at the mercy of the person in power. 

 Marr doesn’t seem to notice. “Stupid girl,” she laughs, and turns back to Desmond, who is unconscious, nudging him with her foot. “Did you really think you could actually hold your own against me in a fight?”

 Stephanie starts moving slowly, wondering if this is a trick. Her head feels a little better, and her hand might throb, but that’s okay. She’s so far in the shit now she might as well have a shot.

 “I’m a century older than you and I’ve never seen such an arrogant mortal in all my life,” Marr is saying. “And I’m  _ American. _ ”

 “Maybe you need to meet more people,” Stephanie says, and just as Marr turns around in surprise, Stephanie levels her other fist and turns her whole body into it, blacking Marr’s eye and knocking her out.

 Stephanie whimpers, both her hands in agony. What does she do  _ now _ ?

 “Steph?” her dad mumbles, stirring.

 “Dad,” she exclaims, rushing to him and hugging him, helping him sit up. “Are you okay?”

 “Better than you,” he says, dazedly looking at her face. “Did you- what happened?”

 “Marr hit you,” she said grimly.

 “Steph,” he says slowly, “What have you  _ done _ ?”

 “She  _ started _ it!”

 “And if you don’t get out of here, she’ll finish it, too,” Desmond says, staring at Marr’s unconscious form. “You need to leave, Steph.”

 “And go where?” she says. Suddenly the crunch of Marr’s face beneath her fist doesn’t seem as satisfying as it was only minutes ago. 

 “I don’t know,” he admits. “But you need to get out of here,  _ now _ .”

 They look at eachother, and this is the first time in her life Stephanie wishes,  _ truly  _ wishes, she had just shut the fuck up and said nothing, because it’s not just her that will be in trouble for this. It’s her father too.

 “Come with me, Dad,” she begs him.  

 He shakes his head. “I’m not as fit as I used to be, Steph. I’ll only slow you down. Besides, I wasn’t the one that beat up a  _ Captain _ .” He can’t help but grin a little. “That was pretty awesome,” he admits. 

 She can’t help but laugh. He wraps her in a hug. She holds him so hard her hands scream. 

 “I love you, Stephanie,” he mumbles.

 “I love you too, Dad,” she whispers.

 Marr stirs on the floor besides them, and they part. 

 “I’ll be back,” Stephanie promises him.

 “I hope not,” he replies, and she wipes the blood from her face as best as she can, opens the door. When she looks back, Desmond is lying back down, pretending to be unconscious. He opens his eyes a tiny bit and gives her the thumbs up.

_ Good luck _ , he mouths. She closes the door, and the noise echoes through the hallway, a gunshot, the finality of what’s she’s just done sinking into her.

 But Stephanie’s never been one to just sit around and accept defeat, so she walks down the stairs, and starts  _ running. _

 

-

 

The studios are blessedly empty, and Stephanie creeps through the rows where the Carvers usually sit, heading towards the store room where China keeps the devices and tools yet to be sent out. She snags a leather bag usually used to carry Carver tools, and stands before the array of devices available to her. 

 She had been surprised when her sigil let her in, but it seems her sigil is malfunctioning, if Marr’s bloodied face is anything to go by. She isn’t sure how, since China carved it herself.

 She crams a few devices into the bag; a portable light, an energy gun. On second thought, a small shield generator as well, and a warming stone. The bag is heavy, and she decides to move on. She’s wasted enough time as is, and heads to the ice box China allocates to the Carvers for storing their lunch. Someone’s left a hunk of bread in there, and there are a few apples as well. She shoves them into the bag, and almost as a last thought, picks up a few spare pen scalpels. She can’t use magic herself, but she can at least fix what she’s stolen if anything goes wrong with them.

 Stephanie has her hand on the doorknob to the back entrance when someone clears their throat. She fumbles for the energy gun as she turns around, levelling it in trembling hands.

 It’s China, looking utterly unsurprised to see her with a bag full of stolen goods and blood smeared across her hands.

 “I hope you know that we don’t pay you for overtime, Stephanie,” she says.

 Stephanie falters. “How do you- how do you know my name?”

 “Gordon and I were close friends,” she smiles. “Why don’t you put that gun down, my dear?”

 Stephanie shakes her head, even as confusion bolts across her mind. “Marr’s coming for me. I need to leave.”

 China waves her hand dismissively. “And what, run out into the wild? Live off the land, and your own urine? You’ll be caught before you breach the town border.”

 Stephanie lowers the gun a little. “Aren’t you- aren’t you going to tell them I’m here?”

 “Why would I do that?”

 Stephanie’s eyes narrow. “Is this a trap? Are you buying time for Marr to get here?”

 China laughs. “My dear, I’m one of the most powerful sorcerers on the planet. I hardly need help from the likes of Davina Marr.” She gestures at her. “Put the gun down before you hurt yourself, and come with me.”

 “Where?” Stephanie asks warily. 

 “We have roughly ten minutes before Marr makes the astounding leap of logic to come and interrogate me,” China says lazily. “I’d prefer it if she didn’t see me harbouring a criminal.” She turns and starts walking. Stephanie almost bolts, then and there, but something propels her forward, following her.

 “You’ve pushed my plans forward by a month,” China sighs. She goes into the next room, and stops in the middle of the row of tables. Stephanie almost bumps into her.

 “What plans?”

 “Well, I didn’t groom you as my protege for over a decade for no reason, my dear,” China says easily, as if it should be obvious. “You may be talented, smart, occasionally funny and have a latent potential for magic, but it takes more than that to bring down the Empire from the inside out.”

 Stephanie gapes. China taps her feet on several different spots and drags her right foot in a semicircle. The wood shivers and then retracts, Stephanie grabs onto China and suddenly they move down at least several stories, before coming to an abrupt stop.

 They’re in a small room that leads down a narrow corridor, and China gently pushes her off the wooden planks that are hovering an inch or so above the lush carpet. 

 “Walk down that hallway and take the second door on your right,” she says. “Wait in that room, and don’t open the door for anyone.” She pauses. “And get changed into the clothes there, you look like a mess.”

 “China-”

 “I’ll be back later. Do try not to get that blood on my carpets. I had them stolen from a palace in Saudi Arabia, you know.” 

 And then she’s gone, back up to the studios, and Stephanie stares at the wood overhead as it slots back into place. The room is small, the roof high, and it gives her claustrophobia, makes her leg twitch. When no-one jumps out to offer her an explanation, she walks down the hallway and takes the second door on her right. It leads into a small, tasteful studio apartment with a bed and another door which on inspection, leads to a bathroom.

 Stephanie puts down her bag, locks the entrance door, and sits on that bed for a good half an hour, running the events of the afternoon through her mind, thinking of her father. Her hands ache and her face throbs, and panic has well and truly set in, so she tries to busy herself.

 The wardrobe is full of dark, shimmering clothes that are conveniently look about her size. The bookshelf, full of books on sigils. The bathroom cabinet, full of creams with sigils she recognises to be of healing, fixing. She very carefully rubs some into her hands and face, and they feel almost immediately better. With the pain gone, she can think a lot more clearly.

 She eats the bread and cheese, because beating up Davina Marr (she can’t help but grin at the thought, she beat up a  _ sorcerer _ ) made her hungry. And then, when there’s still no sign of China, she decides to take a shower, try to calm her nerves. If China’s going to turn her over to Marr, then she might as well enjoy a shower. It’s been nearly a decade, after all, and it’s just as luxurious as she remembers, hot water steaming everywhere, and China has honest to god shampoo and conditioner. It’s almost worth never seeing her father again, she laughs to herself, and then the laughter falls off her face.

_ Idiot, _ she curses herself, and gets out of the shower, towels herself down. 

 Her clothes are covered in blood, so she leaves them on the tiles, and tries on the clothes from the wardrobe. They’re a fabric she’s only ever seen on sorcerers, one she can only assume has magic woven into it. She doesn’t like that she’s wearing clothes likely made for the Empire, but also, as she turns in the mirror? She looks fucking  _ good _ in them. A black version of the high waisted pant suit China wears, the one she so covets, with a slim fitting jacket, a mandarin collared white shirt. She sees a pair of brown oxfords in the back of the wardrobe, with warm black socks. They fit her too, and she slips the heavy coat hanging up over the suit. She looks like these clothes were made for her, to be worn by her, and her alone. She cuts a striking figure, her bruises gone and her eye back to normal. She pulls her lovely long hair back into a messy bun, turning and admiring herself.  

 Just how long has she been in China’s plans  _ for _ ?

 Two hours turns into three, then four, then five. Stephanie ends up lying on the bed, reading one of the sigil books, full of complex grammar and symbols she’s only ever seen on the archway, trying not to think about her father now that the luxury of the apartment has worn off, her hands seemingly fixed.

 Six hours, and the door swings open. China steps in, and Stephanie scrambled to sit up.

 “Your father is safe,” China says immediately, with such authority and confidence, that Stephanie believes her.

 “Where’s Marr?”

 “Looking for you. Quite enthusiastically, I might add. But she will not find you here.”

 Stephanie looks at China, and China looks at Stephanie. Stephanie has so many questions she doesn’t know where to start.

 “An associate of mine will arrive shortly to take you away from here. I may not be able to keep you safe anymore, but he will.” China looks mildly annoyed, but there’s… affection in it. “You’ve utterly thrown my schedule out the window, you know. I was looking forward to dinner.” She checks her watch. “The clothes suit you, by the way. Ghastly hasn’t lost his touch.”

 “What-”

 “Yes, yes, you have many questions, I know,” China says. “But we don’t have time for them. Take whatever you need and put it in that bag of yours, and then you have to leave.”

 “ _ Where _ ?” Stephanie says desperately. China’s eyebrows rise.

 “To the shops,” she says drly. “Where do you  _ think _ , you silly girl? I’m sending you to the Arbiters so you can help them topple Serpine’s Empire.”

 There’s a noise not unlike a beep, and China checks her watch again.

 “Right on time. Follow me.”

After Stephanie crams a few of the sigil books in her bag, China leads her out the door, further down the hallway, and into another room that is tiled with stone slabs, a circle of sigils cut into the middle. Through her confusion and shock and general disbelief, she recognises the sigils as transport; a Teleportation Circuit.

 China flicks her hand, and the sigils light up; another gesture, and somehow, the sigils start spinning, swimming through stone like fish in water. This is magic Stephanie has never seen the likes of, and she steps back in fear, in  _ awe _ . A figure made of light begins to take shape in the swirling ring; the sigils slow, and the figure solidifies. A tall, incredibly thin man with an unremarkable face, in an impeccable suit.

 “Good evening, China,” he says, in such a deep, sonorous,  _ sensual _ voice that Stephanie actually  _ blushes _ .

 “Good evening, my dear,” China replies, and there’s a real warmth in her tone. 

 “Impressive Circuit,” the man continues, stepping out of the ring and towards them. His voice is incredibly and startlingly familiar, now that she’s over the initial lushness of it. “I didn’t believe it myself when Dexter told me.”

 China shrugs. “I surprise even myself, sometimes.”

 “Is that so?”

 “No.” China gestures Stephanie forward. “This is Valkyrie, the one I’ve been training.”

 The man pauses, looking at her, something like surprise on his face. And then he offers his gloved hand.

 “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Valkyrie,” he says.

 “Do I… do I know you?” she says, shaking his hand. It’s oddly dense, with very little give beneath her fingers.

 “We met briefly, a long time ago, when you were very young.” And even as he says it, she remembers a strange wig, a big pair of sunglasses, and a beautiful car,

 “Gordon’s funeral,” she breathes. “You’re Skulduggery Pleasant.”

 “That’s my name,” he nods. “Don’t wear it out.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skulduggery and Stephanie get off on the wrong foot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Mooncactus, whose beta-ing polished this chapter right up! And thanks for the lovely comments and all the kudos!

“I’m glad to see your wit is as sharp as ever,” China says dryly, checking her watch. Stephanie, who is still struck by the past coming back to haunt her, is unable to look away from this plain faced man. Questions line up one after the other, cramming onto her tongue, and she opens her mouth and hopes for the best.

 “Didn’t you have really curly hair?” She asks. “Like, really,  _ really _ curly hair?”

 He looks at her. “I’m not too sure what you mean.”

 “It was like an afro,” Stephanie says, demonstrating the size with her hands. “A  _ big _ one.”

 “She means the wig,” China says, and Skulduggery’s shoulders drop.

 “I try to forget about the wig,” he mutters.

 “And my aunt thought you had major facial reconstructive surgery,” Stephanie frowns. 

  “You could say that.”

 “But you look so… so  _ normal _ . Bland, even.”

 “Oh, that’s lovely, that is,” Skulduggery grumbles. 

 “Careful with his ego, Valkyrie, it’s an easily wounded thing,” China says brusquely. “Both of you get in the circle, Marr is calling me again.”

 Skulduggery steps back into the circle and looks at Stephanie expectantly.

 “Go on, dear,” China says, when Stephanie hesitates. The older woman lays a gentle hand on her back, and something, some spark of fortification, slides warm and reassuring down her back, easing her tired muscles. “You can trust him.”

 For once, China’s tone is gentle and sincere, and Stephanie takes a deep breath, stepping past the dormant circles to stand next to Skulduggery.

 “Take good care of her,” China warns him.

 “You know me, China,” Skulduggery says. “The epitome of cautious.”

 China makes a face that on anyone else would be ugly, then closes her eyes, concentrating. The symbols start swimming around them, and Stephanie automatically takes a step away from them, bumping into Skulduggery’s side. He looks down at her.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “It’s just like riding a bicycle.”

Stephanie squints at him. “What does  _ that _ -”

 It’s instantaneous, but also an eternity too long; a flash of light and her limbs being crushed, pulled, twisted, and then suddenly they’re in a forest.

 Stephanie keels onto her knees and vomits.

 “It’s no fun at all,” Skulduggery says, stepping back a tiny bit to keep his shoes clean. “That’s what I meant.”

 Stephanie gasps, spitting. 

 “ _ Christ _ ,” she mutters.

 “You have some vomit on your shoes,” he points out. She glares up at him. 

 “Where are we?”

 “Croaghmoyle Mountain,” he says, taking an expensive looking pocket watch out of his pocket and consulting it.

 “That’s on the other side of the country,” she says.

 “Ah, I can see why China took you under her wing,” he nods dryly. “Excellent observational skills.”

 He extends his hand to help her back up. She very pointedly doesn’t take it, shakily climbs back to her feet by herself. And then she takes a deep, long breath, and patiently says, “Where are we going?”

 “Ballycroy National Park,” he says, and starts walking.

 “That’s- that’s even  _ more _ on the other side of the country,” she protests, following him. “Do you have a car or something? Is there some secret Resistance railroad we’re going on?”

 “Unfortunately not,” he says. “Hurry along now, we have to be there by tomorrow night.”

 “We’re  _ walking _ there?!”

 “It would appear so.”

 “I punched a Captain in Serpine’s Empire to  _ hike _ to the Resistance?”

 “Actually, as I heard it, you punched a Captain of the Faceless Empire because she threw away some cake,” he corrects her. She may be tall but he’s taller, long legs striding across the forest floor like a machine. She makes a noise of outrage, walking faster to try and keep up.

 “I punched her because she assaulted my  _ dad _ ,” she says, furious. As if she would punch Marr over a piece of  _ cake. _

__ Well. Maybe. 

 “Mm. Slightly more noble,” he allows. “Doesn’t change the fact that we’re walking, however.”

 She’s so angry she falls silent, her legs warming up and getting into the motion. The shoes China left for her are shockingly comfortable, as good as hiking boots, and her clothes seem to be regulating her temperature. Soon the angry flush on her cheeks fades away and she starts noticing how lovely the scenery is as Skulduggery leads her through the forest. When was the last time she left Haggard? It must have been just before the Uprising, before mortals knew any better. 

 Even though in the back of her head there’s a low key constant panic, it’s nice to be somewhere different for once.

 Maybe after half an hour, Skulduggery starts whistling. It’s a sound as smooth and mellow as his own voice, and she recognises the tune almost immediately.

 “ _ Girl from Ipanema _ ?”

 He pauses mid whistle. “Lucky guess.”

 She glares at the back of his head. “I’ve been listening to China’s jazz collection since I was a teenager. Hardly a difficult one to remember. ”

 “Is that so?” He starts whistling something else.

 “ _ Tuxedo Junction _ .” She says immediately, a grin on her face as she crosses her arms defiantly.

 “Not many of the mortals I’ve met know their jazz,” he says reluctantly, glancing back at her.

 “Do many  _ sorcerers _ know their jazz, Mr. Pleasant?”  she says pointedly. 

 A pause. “Perhaps not,” he concedes reluctantly, his tone unreadable. They lapse back into silence, and Stephanie stares at the back of his head. He’s even wearing the same sort of suit she remembers seeing him in at Gordon’s funeral, crisply tailored, and now the questions that were shoving to get to the tip of her tongue line up again, a little more orderly now.

 “So, you knew my uncle,” she says. 

 “Mhmm.”

 “Did he know you were a sorcerer?”

 “I may have let him in on the fact that I’m quite exceptional, yes.”

 She rolls her eyes. “Okay.” And then: “Was my uncle a sorcerer?”

 He laughs. The sound is mellifluous, and so at odds with his cool manner that it takes her aback. “What do  _ you  _ think?”

 She crosses her arms defensively. “Gordon could have been a sorcerer!”   
 “Gordon liked eating his cereal out of the  _ box _ ,” Skulduggery says, and she laughs too, remembering catching Gordon in the act of pouring his milk into the plastic packet.  

 “Sorcerers can’t eat their cereal out of the box?” she says. “ _ That’s _ the criteria?”

“Absolutely,” he says, and it feels like they’re warming up at a tennis match. “They can’t eat cereal unless it’s in a bowl, they have to be over five foot nine, and they absolutely  _ must  _ be devilishly handsome.” Arrogance colors that voice rich and deep. 

 “And how did  _ you  _ become a sorcerer, then?” Stephanie says and is satisfied by how he doesn’t have a witty rejoinder for  _ that. _ The amusement in his voice drains away when he speaks again.

 “To answer your question,  _ no _ , he was not a sorcerer.” 

 “Next question,” she says, and he sighs. “ _ Look _ . I’ve had a long day and I have a lot of questions,” she tells him.

 “Of course.” 

 “Next question,” she repeats. “Why was China training me up?”

 “I can’t answer that.”

 “Can’t, or  _ won’t _ ?”

 He waves his hand. “Take your pick.”

 “Fine,” she mutters. “Okay. Marr said Gordon and China had a relationship?”

“I don’t know if Marr said that or not,” Skulduggery says. “I wasn’t there.”

 She fights the urge to pull her hair. “You know what I meant!”

 He shrugs. “Did I?”

 “Yes! Yes you did!”

 She can’t see his face but she  _ suspects _ he looks infuriating. 

 “I can’t believe I’m stuck with you,” she says under her breath.

 “I know,” he agrees. “Truly, you’re very lucky. And to answer your badly worded question, I believe they did. Briefly.”

 “I can’t believe Uncle Gordon got with  _ China Sorrows _ ,” Stephanie marvels. 

 “Your uncle was very adept at punching above his weight,” Skulduggery agrees, but there’s a measure of fondness in the tone that soothes Stephanie’s low level, constant annoyance with the man just a little.

 The hours pass slowly, filled with crunching leaves and burning calves. It’s excruciatingly boring. When she makes her feelings Known to Skulduggery,  he simply says “unfortunate,” and nothing else. She glares at the back of that bland head of his.

 Eventually, night falls. When it does, Stephanie, legs aching and hunched over from exhaustion, sits down right there. He turns around to look at her.

 “We’re camping right here,” she says. 

 He raises a brow. “I wouldn’t exactly call this area safe, Valkyrie.”

 “Don’t call me that,” she says. “You know that’s not my name. And I’m not moving another  _ step. _ ”

 He says nothing for a long few seconds, face unreadable, and then nods. “Okay then.”

 And then he lays down next to her, folding his hands over his chest and closing his eyes.

 She stares at him. “What are you  _ doing _ ?”

 Without opening his eyes, he says, “Exactly what it looks like.”

 “Where’s our tent? Our sleeping bags?”

 “Your clothes will keep you warm,” Skulduggery says. “And where would I keep camping equipment?” His tone is edging on annoyance now, and she couldn’t care  _ less. _

 She throws her hands up. “It’s  _ freezing! _ ”

 “Do your jacket up,” he suggests. Fuming, she does- and to her disgust immediately feels warmer.

 “I can’t  _ believe _ this,” she says. “You’re a  _ sorcerer _ , can’t you light a fire?”

 “Not unless we want to attract someone’s attention,” he says. “Serpine has patrols everywhere on high alert at the moment.”

 Stephanie freezes. “Because of me?”   
 He cracks open an eye at that, incredulous. “Excuse me?”

 “Because I punched Marr? And escaped?”

 “Oh,” Skulduggery says. “No. It’s because he’s on the lookout for me, actually.”

 A little bit deflated (and a tiny bit disappointed), she takes off her bag reluctantly, tries to make it something remotely resembling a pillow, and lies down on it.

 “This is incredibly uncomfortable,” she says after closing her eyes.

 “I don’t care,” Skulduggery says, and she bristles.

 “Aren’t you going to keep watch, or something?”

 “Nope,” he says, and that’s that.

 

-

 

Stephanie wakes up the next morning with a sore back and aching legs. She drags herself into an upright position and rubs her eyes.

 “Hello,” Skulduggery says. She looks at him blearily.

 “So this wasn’t all just a dream, then,” she mutters. 

 “Unfortunately not,” he says, and stands up. He doesn’t offer her his hand, this time. “Come on.”

 He starts walking, and she stumbles to her feet, cursing his name.

 “How much longer?”

 “About six or so hours. We should get there mid afternoon-”

 He pauses mid step, his foot still off the ground. Stephanie comes to a stop besides him.

 “What-”

 His hand flies over her mouth and she makes a muffled noise. His fingers are bony, thin, and she considers biting them, but Skulduggery’s clearly listening for something she can’t hear.

 “Down,” is all he says in a quiet voice, and before she can do anything, he’s dragging her to the ground with him.

 There’s twigs poking into her ribs, and her arm is twisted beneath her at an awkward angle. Her heart thunders, waiting for someone, for something to come out. Skulduggery’s side is pressed against her, and his eyes are closed. 

 “What is it?” she whispers. He shakes his head, and she glowers. They lay like that for a long time. Her heart slows down as her fear turns to boredom, her twisted arm turning numb.

 Up close, Skulduggery somehow feels even skinnier than he looks, his hip bones jabbing into her side a little, his hands long and elegant things. There’s a floral pattern to his tie. She idly traces it with her eyes as her leg starts twitching from the effort of remaining still.

 Finally, he opens those eyes and looks at her.

 “All clear,” he says, and gets up. She awkwardly stands up as well, and before she can ask, he starts walking again.

 “What was that all about?” she tries, stumbling after him. 

 “There was something nearby.”

 “What was?”

 “Something.”

 “You don’t know what it was, do you?” she says suspiciously. 

 He shrugs. 

 “ _ Sorcerers _ ,” she mutters. He turns back, as if he’s about to say something, but doesn’t.

-

 

“Don’t you have any food?” Stephanie asks desperately. Her throat is dry, her stomach rumbling.

“Didn’t you bring any?” he counters.

“Why,” she says, “Would I bring food?”

“Because you need to eat?”

“Oh, and you  _ don’t _ ?”

“Not especially, no.”

“I’m going to faint,” she warns him.

“No you’re not,” he says.

 “And what if I do?”

 He shrugs. “Perhaps I’ll leave you here. Let the wolves raise you as one of their own.”

 “I’m a grown woman,” she points out.

 “You don’t act like it,” he says, and she huffs in frustration. 

 “Well-  _ you _ don’t act like it!”

 “Of course I don’t,” he says. “I’m not a grown woman.”

 Stephanie wants to hit him. Only supreme self controls stops her. 

 “Almost there, now,” he says. 

 “Thank God,” she mutters. 

 “You know,” he says, “I remember Gordon telling me what an intelligent and charming child you were. What changed?”

 “Gee, I wonder,” she says, falling into her annoyance fully now, “Maybe some asshole sorcerers enslaving the world?”

 He begins to say something and then falls still and silent again. Stephanie, embracing her general distaste, doesn’t notice.

 “It’s  _ almost  _ as if-”

 “Shut up,” he says.

 She stares at him. “Excuse me?”

 “Shut  _ up _ ,” he says, and reaches out with his hands, a look of concentration on his face.

 “What is it now?” she says. “Something  _ else _ your amazing powers can’t identify?”

 “Haven’t you noticed how quiet it is? Where’s the wildlife? The ambient noise?”

 She frowns. It  _ is _ pretty quiet.

 “Stay close to me _ , _ ” he says, and starts slowly walking. Stephanie follows him, reaching into her bag and taking out the energy gun.

 They come into a clearing near a small brook, and Skulduggery stops. He lowers one of his arms and shifts his jacket aside, revealing the butt of a gun in a shoulder holster. He rests his hand on it.

 With the other hand, he makes a gentle motion, and a breeze stirs, moving the leaves blanketing the clearing to reveal-

 Stephanie puts a hand over her mouth preemptively, turns away. 

Three dead bodies, guts bared to the air and covered in blood.

“Serpine’s let something out to play,” Skulduggery murmurs. He does another gentle motion, and the air ripples again.

 Magic, she realises.

 “What is it?” Stephanie murmurs back.

 “I’m going to have to go get a closer look,” he says. “Stay here.”

 “Absolutely  _ not _ ,” she says. 

 He looks at her. “You are going to stay here, and if I tell you to run, you are to  _ run _ , and that is  _ final _ .”

 Fuming, she crosses her arms, and he moves into the clearing. His footsteps are incredibly light, and if she wasn’t seeing him with her own eyes she wouldn’t believe he was even there.

 He kneels by the bodies carefully, examining them. Stephanie doesn’t take her hand off the gun.

 After a few minutes, he looks up and gestures her over. She approaches as carefully as he did, and then grimaces at the smell.

 “Whatever did this has moved on,” he tells her. “See how their abdomens are swollen? These bodies are old.”

 “So we’re safe?” she asks.

 “Not at all,” he replies. “But are we about to get attacked? Probably not.”

 “Reassuring,” Stephanie mutters. “So you have no idea who did this?”

 “Well, it wasn’t a person.”

 “Great.”

 “No, whatever did this is quite a bit more dangerous than a person.”

 “Even better.”

 Skulduggery stands up. “If I didn’t have to accompany you, I’d investigate further. As it is, we need to keep moving.”

 Stephanie frowns. “What, you’re just going to leave the bodies?”

 He looks at her. “I do not have time, right now, to take care of this, no.”

 “You can’t just leave  _ people _ like this.”

 “They’re  _ dead  _ people. I hardly think they’re going to notice. And unless you want to wait around and be the next victim, I suggest we get a move on.”

 His voice is getting that dark annoyance in it again, as if these people deserve to be just  _ left _ here, like this whole thing is a  _ burden _ on him, and Stephanie clenches her jaw.

_ Don’t be stupid _ , she tells herself.  _ You can’t go around punching sorcerers whenever you want to. _

 So she starts walking, and pretends the stink of rotting flesh isn’t still in her nose, that her fingers aren’t curled into a fist.

 

-

 

It’s bordering on dusk when Skulduggery leads them down into a small valley that houses a lake, the wind biting at their fingertips. They come right to the edge of the water, and then stop.

 “Where’s all the people?” Stephanie asks, jamming her hands in her pockets, and glowering at the lake. She’s  _ starving _ , and feeling faint, and just wants to lie down. Maybe eat a pizza.

 God, she misses pizza.

 “Around,” Skulduggery says,  _ infuriatingly. _ She juts her jaw forward and refuses to indulge him. After a few moments he steps towards the lake and places his hands out, the backs pressing against each other as if he’s about to do breaststroke but without the water. Stephanie  _ gasps _ as he slowly moves his arms out and away from each other, and the lake parts like the Red Sea.

 “Follow me,” he says, still holding his hands out, and walks onto the lake bed. Stephanie follows him, gaping, as they walk right through the middle, the dirt bone dry beneath their feet.

 It’s nerve wracking, claustrophobic, these walls of water towering over them. Stephanie’s only seen sigil magic in action, and while she knows that sorcerers can control the elements among other things, but  _ seeing  _ it is another thing, this raw display of power.

 Skulduggery doesn’t even seem fazed, his hands steady and sure. The lake is big, as well, and it takes them a good ten minutes to reach the other side. He doesn’t once falter.

There’s a small overhang she didn’t notice, the water beneath it parted as well, sloping up into the valley walls in a little cavern that must be half flooded when the water is at its usual level. Skulduggery nods for her to climb up, and she does, grunting as she pulls herself up hand over hand. A good five minutes later, she reaches the top, a cave with a dark, seemingly endless tunnel. She turns-

 To see Skulduggery still at the bottom. 

 “Be up in a second,” he calls, and then makes a motion downwards with his hands, twisting. The water closes around him in a whirlpool that spits him out with unerring accuracy; he lands gracefully right besides her.

 She pretends to be unfazed. Judging by Skulduggery’s little smirk, it doesn’t work.

 “In we go,” he says, clicking his fingers; a flame flares to life and grows in his hand, throwing light that flickers off the walls.

 The tunnel is narrow, and the shifting light makes Stephanie dizzy, acutely uncomfortable; it gets to the point where she’s about to sit down when they round a corner and come out into a large cavern, full of gentle lanterns, and the air rushes back into her lungs with relief.

 “Welcome to the Sanctuary,” Skulduggery says. “Well. The antichamber, at least.”

 They pass through into a narrower cavern, but still significantly larger than the tunnel they passed through. The next cavern is lined with holes in the walls of varying sizes, and Skulduggery turns and they go into one slightly on the left, about three hundred meters long, and come into what looks like a dead end.

 Skulduggery motions with his hand, and the rock shifts slowly but surely to form an archway. At the end of the tunnel past it, Stephanie can see lights and silhouettes of people.

 “After you,” he says. She goes in and he drags that stone shut behind them.

 Four men stand around a crude stone table, and look acutely delighted to see Skulduggery; an older man with a bit of a gut and a thick beard; and three other men who look to be the same age as Skulduggery. They’re very handsome. 

 Stephanie is immediately on guard.

 “Welcome back,” the older man says. “Glad to see China hasn’t decided to sell us out just yet.”

 “Evening, gentleman,” Skulduggery says, setting his hat on the table. 

 “And who is this?” one of the younger men say, with dark hair and muscles that bulge through his shirt. He looks like a model.

 “My name-”

 Skulduggery catches her eye, and shakes his head ever so slightly.

 “Is Valkyrie,” she finishes. 

 “Just Valkyrie?” the dark haired man says. She nods, and he sticks out his hand.

 “Dexter Vex,” he announces with a charming smile. “Nice to meet you.”

 She hesitantly shakes it.

 “China didn’t say you were so stunning,” he continues, still shaking her hand. She squints at him suspiciously, and pulls back.

 “China doesn’t say a lot of things,” the older man says. “I’m Corrival Deuce, my dear, and thank you for coming all this way.”

 He reminds her of her grandpa a little, a big tough looking man, reliable, and she shakes his hand much more willingly.

 The other two men across the table smile at her.

 “Name’s Saracen Rue,” one waves across the table, a sturdy man with deep tawny hair combed off his forehead. “And this one’s Erskine Ravel.”

 Esrkine smiles at her, his striking golden eyes twinkling.

 “And you’ve met Skulduggery, of course,” Dexter says, motioning to the bland man himself.

 “Unfortunately,” Stephanie says, a little sharply. Dexter raises a brow.

 “Someone get her some food,” Skulduggery says in exasperation, and Dexter jogs out of the room. Stephanie takes one of the empty seats.

 “Alright,” Corrival says, rubbing his hands together. “My dear, I understand this has been a very long couple of days for you. And as much as we’d love to talk your ears off, I think we’ll keep it to a minimum, and you can go get some rest.”

 Dexter comes back in with a paper bag.

 “It’s not much,” he admits, handing it to her. “The kitchens closed just before you got here.”

 She opens it and is greeted with cold roast mutton and a freshly baked hunk of sourdough bread. It smells delicious, and she immediately gets to work.

 “Didn’t you feed her?” Saracen asks Skulduggery.

 “Since when do I bring food?” he says irritably. 

 “ _ Skul _ ,” Dexter says in a disappointed tone.

 “Now I’m not sure how much Skulduggery has told you,” Corrival continues, “But I’d say it’s a fair assumption that you know who we are.”

 Stephanie is too busy eating to say something appropriately pithy, so she nods.

“Now, China has been keeping us up to date on you for quite some time now. We can’t get into too much detail until our Sensitives come and check that you aren’t planning to double cross us, but essentially, we believe you’re going to be quite useful to our cause.”

“And what if I’m not?” Stephanie says bluntly, licking her fingers. 

 Corrival looks taken aback. “What do you mean?”

 There’s a sigh; Skulduggery speaks up. “What she means to say is, what if she doesn’t  _ want _ to be useful?”

 A long pause. 

 “Well, we won’t  _ force _ you to help,” Saracen says. He looks at Dexter. “Right?”

 “Uh.” Dexter looks at Corrival. 

 “We won’t force you to do anything,” Corrival confirms. 

 “But we would  _ really _ appreciate it if you do,” Dexter says with that charming smile.

 “Immensely,” Saracen adds, with a smile of his own.

 Stephanie looks behind her. Skulduggery stands with his arms crossed by the door, looking at her. His expression is blank.

 “Why wouldn’t you help us?” Erskine says.

 Stephanie shrugs. “Sorcerers haven’t done much for me.”

 “ _ Serpine’s _ sorcerers haven’t done much for you,” Corrival corrects her, spreading his arms wide. “But the Arbiters have been fighting against him for years now.”

 “The who?”

 Saracen groans. Dexter looks at Corrival.

 “What are the Arbiters?” Stephanie tries again.

 “You haven’t heard of us?” Erskine says.

 “It’s the official name of the Resistance,” Skulduggery says quietly.

 “Oh. I mean, I’ve heard of you, but not by that name.” She frowns. “And I’d argue you haven’t done much for us mortals either.”

 Dexter frowns. “We rescued three people from your village alone this month.”

 Stephanie stares at him. “What?”

 “Shush,” Erskine reprimands him. 

 “Look,” Stephanie says. “I’m sure you’re all doing your best, but frankly, I’m really tired, and I’d  _ really _ like a shower and an actual bed to rest in.”

 “An excellent idea,” Corrival says hastily. “Skulduggery, show her to where she’ll be staying for now, and we can talk further when we’re all… better rested.”

 Skulduggery grunts, and leaves; Stephanie hastens to follow him, her bag clanking against her side.

 He doesn’t say anything, just leads her through a maze of hallways, and stops in front of a blank stretch of wall. A motion of his hand and he opens it up into a very primitive room with a rough bathroom attached. She steps inside, surveying her surroundings. It has a bed, and that’s all that matters to her right now.

 “I’ll come get you in the morning,” he says and goes to close the wall back up. 

 “Seriously? I have to sit around and  _ wait _ for you?”

 “I have never been more serious in my life,” he says. “And I suggest you maybe have a little gratitude towards the people that saved you from being strung up in a dungeon for the rest of your life.”

 “Well excuse  _ me  _ for not being overjoyed my entire life got turned upside down,  _ again _ ,” she snaps, crossing her arms. “ _ Wow _ , sorry I’m not overjoyed to be dragged away from the family I have left so you would draft me into  _ your _ war!”

 Skulduggery looks at her. “No one forced you to come here.”

 “It’s not like I had a choice though, did I?” She argues. “It’s a lose-lose for me, you know!”

 “You could make a real difference here,” Skulduggery says in that not  _ quite  _ level voice, that annoyance broiling underneath, and it makes her grimly satisfied that she’s not the only one frustrated. 

 “What is  _ one mortal _ going to do against Serpine?” she spits. 

 He exhales hard, muscles in his jaw clenching. “I’m starting to wonder that myself,” he says archly, and seals the wall back up, cutting the conversation short.

 Stephanie grunts in frustration, mumbles to herself, then drops her bag and sits on the bed.

 And then she lies down, and falls asleep before she can ever turn the little lantern off next to her.

 

-

 

Stephanie doesn’t dream, but wakes up a little disoriented, confused, before remembering where she is. She rolls over and stares blankly at the wall for a bit, and when feeling sorry for herself gets boring, she sits up. An analogue clock on the wall tells her it’s seven in the morning, her old habits dying hard, so she gets up and has a shower. It’s not quite as luxurious as China’s was, but it’s still a far cry from sponge baths, and the hot water soothes the aches from the journey here. 

 She washes her clothes afterwards with the bar of soap on the sink. They come out perfectly clean, and she can’t help but marvel a little at them. She doesn’t have anything else to wear, though, which is going to be a problem.

 She’s in the middle of putting on her wet bra when the rock opens up, and Skulduggery steps in, in the middle of checking his pocket watch.

 Stephanie freezes. Skulduggery looks up from his watch, his gaze travelling entirely up her body and coming to rest on her eyes, and he blinks, mouth opening just a little.

He immediately turns around. “Sorry, I didn’t-” his voice is rough, and he clears his throat. “My apologies.” 

 He sounds genuine, and she decides to let it go, well rested now and not so cranky, and yanks the rest of her clothes on, grimacing at the squelchy feeling.

 “You can turn around now,” she says, looking for her socks. He does, and looks… amused. And a little relieved, maybe. 

 “You can’t walk around like that,” he says. “You’ll ruin the carpets.”

 “It’s a  _ cave _ ,” Stephanie mutters, pulling her wet sock on. It feels  _ awful _ .

 “May I?” he asks.

 She looks up suspiciously. “May you what?”

 “Let me dry you off,” he says, exasperated, still not quite meeting her eyes.

 “Oh. Uh. Okay.”

 He flicks up a hand and the water shifts away from her clothes and skin, forming a sphere mid air that he shifts through into the bathroom and lets splash into the shower. 

 “Thanks,” Stephanie says.

 He makes a little motion as if to say,  _ think nothing of it _ . 

 “Come on,” he says gruffly, sliding the stone away. “You can leave your bag here,” he adds, and they walk back through the maze but in a different direction now, upwards, and soon Stephanie’s calves burn.

 They come out into a room full of natural light, overlooking the valley; Dexter and Erskine sit at another roughly hewed stone table, eating eggs and bacon.

 “Take a seat,” Dexter says cheerily, and Stephanie does, her mouth watering. Dexter passes her a platter engraved with sigils of warmth, and she takes bacon straight from the plate, not even bothering with the bare dish Erskine passes her.

 Skulduggery doesn’t sit down.

 “Corrival will be up in a bit,” Dexter says. “He’s not a morning person.”

 Saracen steps in with a mug of what must be coffee, the scent strong and bitter and bringing back memories of breakfasts with Stephanie’s mother. Stephanie hasn’t smelt coffee in years.

 “Morning all,” Saracen says, yawning and sitting down. She doesn’t respond, too busy eating the bacon. She hasn’t had bacon since she was a teenager. It’s a delight. 

 “You look well rested,” Saracen says, sitting next to her. “Was the cell okay?”

 Skulduggery groans. 

 “Cell?” Stephanie says, eyebrows arching.

 “Cell’s an… overstatement,” Skulduggery says hastily. “It’s a temporary room for new arrivals.”

 “If it was a cell,” Dexter tells her, “It wouldn’t have had a bed.”

 She wrinkles her nose, mollified a little.

 Corrival staggers in twenty minutes later, looking profoundly unhappy to be alive.

 “Every morning,” he mutters. “Too many mornings.”

 He falls into the chair next to Stephanie, and takes a sip from Saracen’s mug. 

 “Corrival-” Saracen begins. Corrival looks at him blearily, and Saracen shakes his head. “Never mind.”

 “Now that we’re all here,” Skulduggery says loudly, “And now that we’re all well rested-” he looks at Stephanie pointedly- “shall we pick up from where we left off?”

 “Not yet,” Erskine says. “Cassandra and Finbar are on their way up now. Let’s get the hard part out of the way.”

 “Speak of the devils,” Skulduggery says, and then two people walk in. One looks like a hippie grandmother, and the other looks like they belong in a tattoo parlour. Stephanie can’t help but like them immediately.

 “Hey, Skul-man,” the man says.

 “Hello, Finbar.”

 “This is Valkyrie,” Corrival says, gesturing vaguely at her, still hunched over Saracen’s coffee. “The one China sent.”

 “Oh, we’ve heard a lot about you,” Cassandra says with a smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, dear.”

 Finbar cracks his knuckles. “Nothing to worry about, my dude. We do this all the time.”

 “Uh,” Stephanie says, as they come to stand either side of her, hands outstretched.

 “They’re just going to check you aren’t a threat,” Erskine tells her over a fried tomato.

 “It won’t hurt,” Saracen adds reassuringly.

 “This is incredibly all against protocol,” Skulduggery mutters, and then Finbar and Cassandra place their hands on Stephanie’s head.

 It’s as if she’s been submerged in water, like her own head expands and envelops her. She’s suspended in this space but she can sense Finbar and Cassandra alongside her, gentle presences that expertly flick through the currents of her like fish. Timeless, slow, the world like treacle, and then she comes back to see everyone looking expectantly at her.

 “She’s clean,” Cassandra says. 

 “For  _ now _ ,” Finbar says dramatically, wiggling his fingers. “Nah, she’s fine.”

 “Excellent,” Corrival says. “You can go now, thank you both very much.”

 Cassandra smiles gently at Stephanie and pats her on the shoulder, and Finbar snags a piece of bacon on his way out.

 “What just happened?” Stephanie says, a little dazed. 

 “Cassandra and Finbar are Sensitives,” Skulduggery says. “Psychics, essentially. They check every person that arrives here.”

 “And now that we know we can trust you for  _ sure _ ,” Corrival exclaims, “We can get down to brass tacks-”

 “Um,” Stephanie blurts. “I don’t. I don’t know why you think I’m going to be able to help you.”

 “China trained you,” Dexter says easily. “She trained you  _ specifically  _ to help us.”

 “Exactly,” Corrival nods. “I understand your trepidation, my dear, but we are in dire need of some fresh eyes and clever hands.” He pauses to take a sip of coffee and smack his lips. “China and you were working on a big project,” Corrival continues.

 “The archway?” Stephanie says.

 “Yes. Serpine is calling it ‘The Gate’,” Saracen says. “And we can’t let him use it.”

 “What does it do?” Stephanie asks. 

 “You don’t know?” Dexter says, surprised.

 Stephanie shakes her head. “No, the sigils were really unusual,” she admits. “And China never told me.”

 The men all look at eachother. Corrival is the one who speaks first.

 “The Gate is exactly what it sounds like,” he says gently. “But a little more… villainous.”

 “It’s a gate between realities,” Saracen explains.

 “Okay, well, that sounds pretty neat,” Stephanie says. “What’s the problem? Maybe we’ll meet some cool aliens, or something.”

 Saracen grimaces. “We’ll meet  _ something  _ alright.”

 Stephanie rolls her eyes. “Can you stop beating around the bush? What does Serpine want the Gate for?”

 “What he’s always wanted,’ Skulduggery says, that beautiful voice dark with hatred. “So he can bring back the Faceless Ones to slaughter the world once and for all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhorghh IM REALLY ENJOYING WRITING THIS ideally I'll have the next chapter up by the end of next week....... thanks again!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skulduggery goes on a trek. Stephanie reads Harry Potter. Also, there's a horrible monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to the lovely Mooncactus who is beta-ing this fic for me!
> 
> also here we GO some action!!! thank u for the support guys i hope u like this one as much as i enjoyed writing it!

“Hmm,” Stephanie says. “Okay. I have a couple of questions, like.”

 “Of course,” Corrival says graciously.

 “Right. So, first question. I was under the impression the Faceless Ones weren’t actually real?”

 Erskine sighs. “That was the impression the majority of the magical community was under, yes.”

 “How do you know Serpine isn’t just crazy?” Stephanie says. “He fits the bill.”

 “We know,” Corrival begins gravely, “Because one of our spies - who died for this information, by the way - discovered that Serpine found the Scepter of the Ancients.”

 Dexter makes a noise. “You didn’t tell me that,” he says, stunned.

 Saracen turns to him. “You’ve been gone for the last month.”

 “You could have _texted_ me,” Dexter protests. “Or, you know, _told me when I got here a week ago_!”

 Stephanie cuts across this with a wave of her hand. “Hi, yeah, what’s the Scepter of the Ancients?”

 It’s Skulduggery who answers her, this time. “Serpine likes to keep this part of the story from the Churches and mortals, but the Ancients were the magic users who destroyed the Faceless Ones. And the Scepter is what they used to do it.”

 “And considering that the Scepter was long considered a myth, finding it digs up some pretty problematic possibilities.” Dexter adds.

 “Couldn’t it just be, like, a relic? You know, surrounded by myth over the years?” Stephanie offers.

 Corrival shakes his head. “Unfortunately not. There are Echo Stones that can account for it- which we took as fantastical second hand descriptions, passed from person to person back before science reared its head.”

 “Echo-?”

 “They contain the imprinted consciousness of a person,” Skulduggery says immediately.

 “Not to mention, our spy managed to confirm not only how _old_ the Scepter is, but the _type_ of magic that has touched it.”

 “Old magic,” Saracen says. “Nasty, old, dusty Faceless One magic.”

 “Alright,” Stephanie shrugs. “What does the Gate have to do with this?”

 “That’s the problem,” Corrival says. “We have no idea. That’s where _you_ come in.”

 “Me?”

 “You’ve worked on the Gate,” Erskine reminds her. “China is under far too much surveillance to send us images or plans, let alone subtly drop around for a cup of tea. You’ve seen it up close, you’ve _worked_ on it. If anyone can figure out how Serpine plans to use it, _you_ can.”

 “But I’m just an apprentice Carver,” Stephanie protests.

 Corrival looks apologetic. “You’re all we’ve got.”

 “No pressure,” Dexter adds.

 

-

 

Skulduggery escorts her back to her room, quieter than she would have expected.

 “What do _you_ think about all of this?” she asks.

 “About what?”

 “About your gods being real.”

 He shrugs. “They aren’t _my_ gods.”

 “So you’re telling me you aren’t at all surprised?”

 “Oh, I’m surprised,” he nods. “But there’s still a chance Serpine, like you aptly suggested, is reaching at really stupid straws.”

 “Are the Faceless Ones… evil?”

 He shrugs again. “Depends on what your definition of evil is. But I can’t say I cherish the idea of them running rampant.”

 They come to her little stretch of cave wall, and Skulduggery checks his pocket watch. “Someone will bring you dinner tonight,” he says.

“What, I have to sit around in my _cell_ all day?”

He looks at her, that rough annoyance bleeding through his voice again even as his bland face looks on impassively. “Did you not hear a word of what Corrival said back there? If I were you, I’d start reading those books you brought. Serpine isn’t going to wait around for someone to foil his plans.”

 “Yeah, I’m sure these old, dusty-ass books will _really_ hold the answer to your problems,” Stephanie mutters. He opens up the wall with a motion of his hands and she steps through. Before she can even say anything else, the rock cracks closed behind her.

 “Asshole,” she says at the wall, kicking off her shoes and laying on the bed. The room is so excruciatingly boring, no windows and no paintings, and she eventually sighs and rolls over, reaches into the  bag she brought all this way.

 There’s three thick leather bound books; one on advanced sigils and sigil combination, one on sigil grammar and the third on sigil use throughout history.

 They all look dry as _hell_ , and Stephanie hasn’t had to study from a book since she was sixteen.

 “Not much else to do, I guess,” she says, gets comfortable on the bed. She selects _Advanced Grammarie_ and gets to work.

 

-

 

She doesn’t know how, or why, but she’s wandering through Haggard. The streets are empty, and it’s a blindingly bright afternoon.

 Stephanie’s on edge at it. The silence, the glare- it’s off kilter, and where is everyone?

 “Hello?” she calls out. Her voice echoes back at her, mocking, and she frowns, walking down the street.

 She can see people in the distance. People standing very still. She jogs up to one, and as they turn around, she sees it’s her father, his belly ripped open and his eyes blank.

 Stephanie falters a few feet away from him. His necklace sits over the top of his shirt, glinting like an accusation.

 “Dad?” she tries.

 He opens his mouth but it’s Marr’s voice that comes out now, disproportionately loud:

  _Arrogant._

 She jolts awake, hair plastered on her forehead, disorientated. She’s starfished across the bed, that thick tome spread open over her chest, and she rubs her eyes, glances to the clock.

 She’s been asleep about an hour, and Stephanie sits up, puts the book to the side. She thinks of her dad, and that guilt she hates zips through her ribcage like an electric current, sharp and painful.

   _Marr had it in for me_ , she thinks. _It’s not my fault._

 Trying to put it from her mind, she glances over at the _Grammarie._ She fell asleep with it open to a page explaining the use of combining more than three sigils at a given time. It’s a little basic by her standards, which is why she probably fell asleep.

 She tries skimming it, but her eyes just slip off the page, and she huffs in frustration, slams the book closed. She’s used to having China’s studio and all it entails; a working station, tools, space, _music_. Stephanie’s a hands-on learner, and the thought that she’s going to be stuck in this room for however long already has her leg twitching.

 She goes over to the wall where Skulduggery usually opens the entryway, and bangs her fist, wincing at how unforgiving the stone is.

 “Hey!” she yells. “Let me out!”

 No reply, of course, and it occurs to her that maybe the stone is just so thick no one can hear her. What if they forget about her? What if they forget where the wall is and she starves to death after eating her shoes-

 “ _Hey!_ ” She shouts, as loud as she can, banging her fists on the stone. Still nothing. The clock says it’s nearly six in the evening; her stomach says it’s time for dinner.

 Didn’t Skulduggery say he would bring something for her to eat? He’ll probably open up the wall any minute now, and say something rude in that lovely voice, and give her some gruel, or whatever they feed prisoners here-

 God, she’s hungry. And it’s _hot_. She rips off her jacket, rolls her sleeves up, starts to struggle with the top collar buttons-

 Which is naturally, of course, when the wall rumbles and cracks open. She stops like an animal caught in headlights, staring at Skulduggery, who’s staring back at her over a tray of hot food.

 “You look quite demented,” he says.

 “It’s _hot_ in here,” she snaps. “And I’m _hungry_.”

 He raises the tray a little. “I hope you like roast chicken.”

 She snatches the tray away from him, salivating. She hasn’t eaten roast chicken for so long, and oh those are _honey roast potatoes_ -

 Stephanie sits right there on the floor and starts eating, ignorant of how Skulduggery awkwardly stands at the entrance. Grease on her fingers and she gulps the whole thing down in a matter of seconds.

 Skulduggery clears his throat. “Should I leave you two alone, or?”

 “Maybe,” she says. “It’s been a long time, if you know what I mean.”

 He coughs. She takes delight in laughing, sucking the chicken juice out from underneath her nails.

 “I’m bored in here,” she tells him.

 He nods. “That’s generally the point of prison.”

 “I thought I wasn’t a prisoner?” she says suspiciously.

 Skulduggery shrugs, motioning for the tray. “I best be on my way.”

 She holds it out of his reach. As she’s still on the floor, she holds it behind her. “What are you expecting me to do without _plans_ ? Do you have any idea how many sigils were _on_ that thing?”

 He reaches for the tray. “I’m sure you’ll manage.”

 She leans back. “Mm, yeah, no.”

 “Stephanie,” He warns her. “Give me the tray.”

 “Or what?” She says, taunting. He bends down, arm outstretched, eyes blazing. They glare at each other for a good long minute, and then he sighs, stands back up. The tray suddenly yanks itself from behind her back, sliding through the air and coming to rest in his hand.

 “Or that,” he says.

 “Ah well,” she shrugs. “Can’t win them all.”

 He turns to leave, the rock beginning to grate apart.

 “Wait,” she says hastily, clambering to her feet. With a deep groan and a turn of his head so slow it suggests the effort is draining the energy from his bones, he looks at her.

 “I’m serious, you know,” Stephanie tells him. “Without any plans, I’m kind of useless. There were _thousands_ of sigils to be Carved on the Gate, and I only worked on maybe fifty of them.”

 He’s silent for a moment. “Are you absolutely, one hundred percent unable to work without the plans?”

 She nods. He looks at her for a long moment.

 “I’ll see what I can do,” he says, and then he’s gone, the rock closing behind him.

 

-

 

The next day, it’s Corrival who brings her breakfast.

 “Where’s tall, bland and snarky?” Stephanie asks him, taking the tray of warm muesli from him. She’s wrapped in a thick robe she found hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and if she weren’t a stuck in a cave, she’d feel almost like she’s at a day spa.

  Corrival looks like he has no idea who she means for a second, and then understanding crosses his face.

 “Oh, Skulduggery?” Corrival’s mouth quirks a little. “He’s… around.”

 She raises a brow. “Why did you pause?”

 “What?”

 “You paused,” she says. “He’s… around.”

 Corrival looks pained. “I don’t know what you mean.”

 Stephanie squints at him. “Is he dead, or something?”

 “No,” Corrival replies quickly.

 Her squint deepens. “You sure?”

 “He’s out,” he says. “I can’t tell you where. Just in case.”

 “Oh. Fair enough,” she says, jamming a spoonful of muesli in her mouth.

 “How goes the research?” Corrival asks her. She shrugs, points at the open _Grammerie_ with her spoon.

 “Slowly,” she says. “Is Tall and Bland out finding plans for the Gate?”

 Corrival looks like a deer in the spotlight. “What?”

 “I mean, I told him I needed plans… suddenly he’s _out_ … It’s not hard to put together.”

 He holds his hands up. “As much as I like you, young lady, I can’t divulge that type of information.”

 But his eyes are twinkling, so she takes it as a yes.

 “Now,” he says, in a borderline fatherly tone. “Tell me what you’ve been working on.”

 “Not much,” she shrugs, gesturing at the books. “I can’t really do anything without those plans, so. You know. Sleeping, mainly.”

 Corrival looks disappointed, and she hates that she feels bad because of it. “You really can’t do anything?”

 She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. Not until I have those plans in front of me.”

 Corrival looks sombre, and then nods. “Well, until you _can_ do something, I imagine it’s pretty boring in here.”

 “You have no idea.”

 “I’ll bring you some books, shall I? Is there anything in particular you’d like to read?”

 “Do… do you have the _Harry Potter_ series?” she asks hopefully.

 

-

 

As it turns out, the Arbiter’s hideout has a treasure trove of books. Stephanie spends the rest of the day lazing on the bed reading _The Prisoner of Askaban_ , and that night, Corrival brings her _The Goblet of Fire,_ and takes her on a little walk up and down her stretch of hallway for some slightly fresher air.

 She likes Corrival; likes how he doesn’t act like the leader of some big revolution, like she isn’t a mortal but a _person_. He’s a bit blustery, but he brings her a muffin for dessert every meal and always asks her if she wants to go for a walk. It reminds her of Gordon, actually, and how he would take her on walks around his estate when she was young. She wonders if the place is even still standing.

 On the fourth night of Skulduggery’s absence, she says to Corrival, “So why is the leader of the Arbiters bringing me food every day?”

 He laughs. “I was wondering when you would ask that. Out of our little committee, only three are able to open that rock wall into your room. Skulduggery, myself, and another gentleman who’s a little too busy to take my place.”

 “But what if I’m not trustworthy after all?” Stephanie suggests. “What if your psychics were wrong? Aren’t you putting yourself at risk?”

 Corrival grins at her. “I’m several hundred years old, my dear. You’d have to wake up extremely early in the morning to get me. So early, it might as well be the previous day. You’d have to catch me while I’m cooking my dinner, in fact.” He laughs.

 “Am I going to get a room with a door any time soon?” she asks once he stops looking so amused with himself.

 Corrival grimaces. “You’re still in that cell because we’re somewhat over capacity  right now. I have some people working on digging deeper into the cave systems but it’s not exactly fast.”

 “Over _capacity_ ?” Stephanie says, stunned. “It’s a _mountain_.”

 “Not a very big one,” he says. “Not to mention we have a substantial portion of Ireland’s population hidden in here. You’re not the first person we’ve had to save from an untimely lobotomy.”

 “How many mortals?”

 Corrival waves his hand. “In the tens of thousands? Not as many as we’d like, and we haven’t done a census in a while.”

 Stephanie quite feels like the breath’s been knocked out of her;  thousands of people, crammed into this tiny park?

 “Hardly tiny,’ Corrival says, when Stephanie says this. “But yes, it’s a little cramped. You haven’t seen too many of them because this is, frankly, still the foyer.”

 The thought of it makes her skin feel too tight, makes the rock oppressive; the thought of thousands of people crammed underground and she shies away from it.

 “In any case, expanding our luxury accommodation isn’t too high on our list at the moment,” Corrival admits. “Skulduggery mentioned to me the bodies you two came across on your way here.”

 “Yeah, he seemed _real_ upset,” Stephanie says dryly.

 “Well, he will be when he hears the scouts we sent out to retrieve the bodies never came back,” Corrival says grimly. “And he’ll be inconsolable when we inform him that the search team we sent for _them_ didn’t come back either.”

 Stephanie shivers. “Maybe I’ll stay in my little rock cave after all.”

 Corrival looks at her apologetically. “Actually, I have something I need you to do.”

 “Are we gonna go and kick in some skulls? I’m keen to see your moves in action, Corrival,” she says, grinning, and does a dramatic karate kick in the air.

 He laughs. “Not me, unfortunately. Skulduggery will be accompanying you for this one.”

 Stephanie stares at him. “Him? Can’t I go with you?”

 “As flattered as I am by your confidence in these old bones, Skulduggery’s old hand at this sort of thing, and I’d rather put your life in Skulduggery’s hands than mine.”

 She makes a noise of extreme discontent. “Why do _I_ need to go?”

 “We have sigils all around the park,” he explains hastily. “Sigils that should keep anything or anyone without the counter sigil on their person from crossing the protective circle. If something, or some _one_ has gotten in, it’s likely because a sigil isn’t working.”

 He pats Stephanie’s shoulder. “You have a couple of days to think it over. I won’t force you to go…” he says, trailing off.

 “But you’d appreciate it if I did,” Stephanie finishes.

 “Exactly.”

 

 -

 

Stephanie has a nice little routine set up by the eighth day. She wakes up at eight, goes to the bathroom, then washes her face. After her morning ablutions, she brushes her hair and plaits it behind her neck out of the way, and puts some clothes on. At this point, Corrival usually arrives with some breakfast and some more water to fill the jug sitting next to her bed.

 They talk for a bit. If she’s finished her book, he has the next request for her; this morning, it’s _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_ , which she is savouring page by page like a final meal, incredibly thankful she finally gets to finish the series. Then after she finishes her breakfast, he takes it out the cave with him, and she tries to read through her sigil texts to learn a little. Inevitably, this lasts all of two hours before she deems it dry and useless without the plans. Then she has a little nap. Then it’s lunch, and Corrival drops by to take her for a walk. She spends the rest of the afternoon reading until dinner; then Corrival brings her evening meal, and then she showers and goes to bed. She’s never been so well rested in her life. Unfortunately, by the eighth day, it also feels like the walls are closing in on her. She’s also starting to wonder where Skulduggery is, and why he’s taking so long. It’s not quite _worry_ , because he’s an _asshole_ , and his voice isn’t even that nice, but she _is_ starting to wonder. _Maybe he’s dead?_ She thinks once, and the thought makes her uneasy. She puts it away like a book on a shelf and doesn’t think about it again.

 On the ninth day, Skulduggery returns.

 Something is a little different about him. She notices this when the wall crumbles open at about one thirty in the afternoon, and a very handsome black man with close cropped hair strides into her room, several rolled up pieces of paper in tow.

 She stares.

 He stares back at her.

 “Who are you?” she asks. “Where’s Corrival?”

 “What do you mean _who am I_ ?” he says, and oh but his voice _is_ as sensual as she first thought it was. How unfortunate. “I am me. And you, unfortunately, are _you_.”

  “Oh,” she says, pretending that his voice isn’t like dark chocolate and caramel to her ears.  “It’s _you_.”

 He bristles. “Who else would it be?”

 “Are you in _disguise_?”

 He takes a moment to respond to that. “Oh. Right. Yes. Yes, I am in disguise. Are you impressed?”

 “No,” she says immediately, and he deflates a little. “How are you _doing_ that? I thought you were an Elemental?”   
 “I have a few tricks up my sleeve.” He puts the paper down on her bed. She can’t stop staring at him. The only things that could give him away are the strong lines of his jaw, the arch of his cheekbones, the slight bump on the bridge of his nose.

 “You look very well rested,” he says. “Do you know where I’ve been, the last couple of days?”

 “Uh.”

 “I,” he says, “Have been all over Ireland. I had to walk _all_ the way back to that tiresome little Circuit. When I arrived at Haggard, China advised me that Marr had the plans on lockdown and there was absolutely no chance of me attaining them. So then I had to travel to Newbridge, where apparently there was a spare copy hidden, except after I threatened the dimwitted librarian there, she told me Marr had _moved_ it to _Dublin_ for _safety_ . So then, I had to perform an _extremely_ clever and _extremely_ impressive last minute break in to the Vault, and let me tell you, _that_ was an _extremely_ eventful three hours that may have resulted in the inducement of trauma to several very innocent people who made the unenviable mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The wrong place was in front of my fist; the wrong time was the second I decided to punch them. And _then_ , after I escaped with these priceless pieces of paper, I had to walk, _walk_ !- all the way _back_ to the Circuit, and then from the corresponding waystation all the way back _here_ , just so you could level the fine insult _who are you_ to my very respectable face.”

 When it seems like he’s stopped, Stephanie nods. “Are you done?”

 He adjusts his tie. “Perhaps. Who knows?”

 “You,” she says. “ _You_ would know.”

 Skulduggery nods. “Perhaps. But what I do know for _certain_ is that you are absolutely desperate to unfurl those plans and have a good long look at them.”

 “I am?”

 “Yes,” he says, looking at her dangerously. “You _are._ ”

 “You know,” she says ponderously. “I’m really _not_.”

 He takes a step towards her. It’s like an animal stalking something small, and she refuses to step back.

 “Now, despite your likely _overwhelming_ desire to bury yourself in those pieces of paper and help us stop the world from being overrun by angry Lovecraftian monster gods,” he says, very brightly, and very dangerously, “Corrival has just informed me that several people are missing, likely dead, and that somehow _you,’”_ he gestures here at all of her very doubtfully, “Are to help me stop it from happening again.”

 “I’m as excited as you are, don’t worry,” she says, lip curled.

 He nods. “Glad to hear we’re on the same page. You have five minutes to get ready. Knock on the wall when you’re done.”

 He whirls out, and the rock closes over behind him.

 His voice, she thinks, is wasted on him. She pulls on that suit, her shoes, that thick coat. In that coat’s deep pockets, she places the portable light, the energy gun, and a scalpel. And then she goes to the toilet and has some water, because she gets the feeling that Skulduggery isn’t going to allow her a pee break.

 

-

 

Stephanie is right, of course; from the get-go, Skulduggery is moving as fast as his long legs will allow, and she’s is almost jogging to keep up.

 The forest is creepier than Stephanie remembers it. Maybe it’s because she knows something out there has sharp claws and an interest in killing people. She tries not to think about that.

 As they step out of the lake and the water crashes back down behind them, Skulduggery turns to her. Stephanie frowns.

 “Are you gonna get rid of that disguise, or-?”

 He ignores this. “Here’s how this is going to work. You follow me, and you do what I say.”

 “Positively Machiavellian,” Stephanie nods. “You come up with that yourself?”

 “That’s a pretty long word,” he says, almost as if he can’t help himself. “Color me impressed.”  
 “Gee, it’s almost as if I’m not an idiot,” she replies loudly.

 “Shh,” he says, after clearly struggling not to say something to the contrary. He begins leading her through the trees.

 It may be spooky, and a little overcast, but the fresh air is sweet and nice and she eagerly gulps it down. She refuses to start a conversation with him. He wants quiet? She’ll give him _quiet_.

 “You’re shockingly placid today,” he says after an hour. He almost sounds disappointed. The only sounds are the leaves crunching beneath their feet, and something is _off_ , something she can’t put her finger on.   
 Stephanie says nothing.

 “Ah. Finally, you’ve come to see the value, the wisdom, the _majesty_ I possess,” he nods.

 She looks at a tree.

 “I do love the quiet,” he says. “Not to mention, this forest? _Excellent_ acoustics, especially when your voice is as glorious as mine.”

 Stephanie rolls her eyes.

 “I heard that,” he says. “Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

 “Bite me,” she snaps, louder than she meant to. The echo bolts across the trees.

 Whatever pithy reply he’s about to grace her with is lost; there’s a noise somewhere, far off in the distance that echoes through that dead stillness. Skulduggery turns to face it, and Stephanie comes to a stop, fumbling in her jacket for the energy gun. Before she can raise it, Skulduggery reaches back, puts his hand over hers.

 “Hold on,” he murmurs. They both hold like that. She can’t hear _anything_.

 After a few minutes, he lifts his hand and looks at the gun. “Do you even know how to _use_ that?”

 “What, you’d rather I just offer myself up to whatever’s out there?”

 “I wouldn’t object,” he mutters. “For God’s _sake_ , keep your finger _off_ the trigger.”

  Then he turns and she starts following him again.

  After another ten minutes, they come to the first sigil cluster. Skulduggery stands guard while she checks it.

 It’s complex, but not beyond her, and she’s fascinated by the style, the tense used. It’s an archaic thing. Even to a mortal like her, it speaks in an old way, a way she knows in bone and marrow. It tells her she’s safe from things with teeth and claws and dirty magic, things that would rend her as soon as look at her.

 It’s carved deep into an old, thick tree. She brushes it with her fingers, checking the depth with her portable light. The moment she touches it, something stirs in her.

 It’s not uncommon, this sensation; a few sigils individually have the same effect, but it happens more often in clusters like this, concentrated magic. China called it _the headwater_ , a phrase she’s come across in sigil texts. But she’s always thought of it personally not in words, but in sensations. Protective sigils like this when come with warmth, strength, reassurement. Even though she isn’t a sorcerer, it grounds her, takes the bite from the cool afternoon air.

 “I thought you couldn’t do magic?” Skulduggery says from behind her, startling her.

 “I can’t,” she says, lip curling at the thought. “This one is fine.”

 “Let’s keep moving then,” he says, and they make their way to the next one, about a kilometer away. Eventually she realises they’re roughly circling the mountain, and she starts to form a point of reference in her head.

 “You understand, of course,” Skulduggery says suddenly, “That Carving _is_ doing magic.”

 She stares at the back of his head. “Not really. It’s no different from writing words on paper in French.”

 He glances back at her. “But without magic, the symbols are useless.”

 “But it’s not _my_ magic,” she says fiercely. He opens his mouth, but then shakes his head. They don’t speak again across the next three sigils and two hours. Later, darkness suddenly descends on them as the sun entirely slips behind the trees. Stephanie’s eyes have adjusted to the dusk, but now it’s _really_ creepy. She’s on edge, her knuckles stretched white over the gun’s grip.

 “How many more?” she whispers to Skulduggery.

 “Sixteen,” he says calmly.

 “We’ll be out here all _night_ ,” she whispers loudly, incensed and a little scared.

 As if on cue, some strange noise, like nails on a chalkboard. It’s closer than the first noise was, but still far. She automatically reaches out and fists her hand in the arm of Skulduggery’s jacket as they both fall still, waiting.

 Nothing happens, of course. Embarrassed, she carefully extricates herself from Skulduggery’s jacket, waiting for him to make a remark. He doesn’t, and they keep walking.

 The fifth sigil is engraved in a massive boulder. It looks a little different to the previous ones; A little shakier, she thinks, taking out that portable torch. She turns the light as low as possible, her back prickling as she unfortunately has to trust that Skulduggery is looking out for her.

 It looks like it was carved by someone copying something, rather than someone who knew what they were doing, and she puts her face so close that her nose brushes against it. The warmth comes up into her face but it’s weak, sluggish, and on her second pass over the cluster she sees it.

 It’s a thin gash across one of the building block sigils, cutting out the sigil that represents barriers, walls. It’s a smooth, thin, and oddly _clean_ cut. She frowns.  

 “Pleasant,” she says quietly. He slowly comes over to her, still facing out into the forest.

 “What is it?”

 “There’s a cut bisecting one of the main sigils,” she murmurs. “If I had the right filler paste, I could fix it, but I don’t.”

 “Well, _I_ don’t have any.”

 She shakes her head. “I need you to push the surface of the rock up to fill the cut so I can re-carve it.”

 He pauses, and his voice takes a strange tone. “That’s… not a bad idea.”

 “The problem is,” she continues, “Until I carve it back in, this entire sigil cluster will stop functioning. The chain will be broken.”

 “How long will it take you to fix it?”  
 She chews on her lip. “Maybe five minutes.”

 Skulduggery nods. “Alright. Keep watch while I smooth it out for you.”

 She turns to face the forest, the energy gun at the ready. She can hear the gentle scrape as he coaxes the rock upwards, filling itself in.

 Something starts rustling in the forest.

 It doesn’t stop.

 “Hey,” she says under her breath.

 “I hear it,” he replies. “Can you see anything?”

 “No,” she says quietly. Her eyes have adjusted as much as they can, but there’s no moonlight to help her. The trees all blend into each other, one mass of black uselessness that could be harbouring something about to tear her eyes out.

 “I’m almost done,” he says. “I need you to have your scalpel ready and to take my place, okay?”

 “Okay,” she says, her throat tight. The rustling is closer now.

 “Swap,” he says, and they change places. He passes the light back to her and she immediately starts cutting into the rock.

 The scalpel is warm in her hand, and it cuts through the rock easily, swiftly. If she weren’t in a dark forest with a monster somewhere nearby, it’d almost feel like home. But she _is_ in a dark forest, and a monster _is_ lurking nearby, so she works as fast and accurately as she can.

 China’s coached her on fixing this sort of thing before, but she doesn’t have her callipers here, doesn’t have her magnifying glass. She’s relying on skill and practice and every millimetre she carves feels like it’s taking an eternity.

 “I don’t want to alarm you,” Skulduggery says, very quietly, “But you need to hurry up.”

 She doesn’t respond, squinting as she painstakingly cuts back in the angle, praying it’s not off, praying she isn’t cutting too deep or too shallow, praying, praying, _praying_.

 Skulduggery steps away from her; the rustling comes to a sudden stop. Every single hair on her body is on end, but she doesn’t pause to look. As she finishes, she does one last pass over, checks the angles as best she can in the dim light with only her naked eyes to guide her.

 “Finished,” she says.

 “Good. Excellent. Don’t turn around,” Skulduggery says, but she’s already doing it, and she comes face to face with something _hideous_.

 It’s chalk white, with huge big black eyes and long terrible fingers with nails like claws, teeth that cut through its lips and gnash the air. It stares at her with animal ferocity and something deep and dark in her, something millenia old, knows that _this_ is what has always been waiting in the dark

 “What,” she says, throat tight and voice tiny, unable to even finish the sentence. It’s still too loud, though; the creature curls further back into the crouch it’s holding.

 Skulduggery doesn’t answer her. He’s holding the gun up, and with his free hand he gestures very slowly for her to move behind him. Unfortunately, he doesn’t even make the second miniscule curl of his fingers before the creature springs.

 She’s suddenly thrown through the forest by a gust of wind so strong it might as well be a hammer in her ribs. Her head _thwacks_ against a tree and she slams into one of the boughs before tumbling to the ground, wheezing and feeling very illdisposed to this entire situation.

 She looks around, but she can’t see _anything_ , and she starts shaking now, fumbling for her gun. As she levels it, desperately spinning around, she realises what’s so strange; the forest is silent. Where’s the wildlife? The rustling of the wind through the leaves? She should be able to hear the creature easily in this stillness, but it could be _anywhere_ , it could be right about to leap at her-

  _Move_ , something in her says, and she ducks just as it appears out of the gloom and sails over her, snapping and snarling. She rolls to the ground, scrambling up, and starts _running._

 Where the _fuck_ is he? _Fuck fuck fuck,_ she’s chanting in her head, running faster than she ever has in her life. She can hear it behind her, snapping branches and thundering towards her. Her heart is thudding so hard she feels like her veins are about to split open.

 It’s getting closer with every step. She can’t outrun it. The thought is chilling, but what else can she do?

  _Gun_ , a deep, dry voice in her head says. _You have a gun_.

 Right, she does, doesn’t she, curled right there in her hand. A gun. Idiot.

 But to shoot it, she has to stop, has to aim, and it’s almost there now, but she doesn’t have a _choice_.

 She thinks once, just once, of her father, and then she turns around, trembling, but then it’s on her, ramming into her like a linebacker. Her gun flies out of her hands.

 Stephanie is too scared to even scream, desperately trying to hold it back with her forearm while she frantically searches for the gun. Its claws are raking across her suit, but now it’s evident just how powerfully these clothes have been made; not a single thread frays, and while the force makes her gasp, her skin remains blessedly intact.

 She can’t find the gun, and this thing is so strong, it’s over _powering_ her. Stephanie grunts and somehow finds the strength to roll them over, so she’s on top, floundering into a position where her elbow is across its neck. As she does, something jabs against her side-

 The scalpel.

 Grunting and huffing and heaving, she takes it out with her spare hand, jerks her head away to avoid a flying claw. She rips the cap off with her teeth and stabs the scalpel into its neck, jerking the movement into a very basic sigil.

 It’s one of the first sigils she ever learnt; a sigil for stability, for stillness, a simple line with a little flick, and the creature suddenly stops mid motion, blood trickling down from that open cut.

 She stays hunched over like that for a few seconds, trying to catch her breath, and then she rolls off of it.

  _Holy shit._

 She gets up, goes and finds her gun a few feet away. Her knees feel like they belong to someone who doesn’t know how to walk.

 “Pleasant?” she calls out, a sob breaking in her voice.

 “Over here,” he calls back after a painful few seconds. His voice sounds rough, and she turns up her light, follows where it came from.

 It’s not a strong light, so it reveals his feet first. He’s lying on the ground. And his leg is missing.

 “Skulduggery?” She whispers, terrified, and then the light reveals his face.

 She screams. She can’t help it.

 He nods, which does nothing for the giant flap of skin that’s peeled off over his brow, revealing the empty eye socket beneath.

 “That’s quite understandable,” he says.

 “Oh, my God,” she says, hands over her mouth. “Do you have a phone? I’ll call for help,” she says, trying not to look at his face, feeling herself begin to hyperventilate.

 “Oh,” he says. “No, it’s fine. Can you pass me my leg?”

 She stares at him, then switches to staring over his shoulder. “Your… your leg?”

 “Yes, it’s just over there.” He gestures, and she shines the light, which barely illuminates it several feet away.

 “Are you… are you going to heal yourself?”

 “In a manner of speaking.”

 She goes and gets him his leg, throwing up only once in the process as she drags it over to him, pant leg and all. It’s lighter than she expected.

 She offers it to him.

 “Thank you very much,” he says, taking it from her. He lifts the top part of his pant leg a little bit and jams his leg back into his pelvis with a very loud and very rough grunt of pain. She stares as he gets up, that awful flap of skin still swinging about. He’s gripping onto his pant leg to keep it held up.

 “Your… your eye,” she says.

 “Ah,” he says. “You noticed that, then.”

 “Skulduggery,” she says, “Your eye is missing.”

 “Well,” he says, slowly. “I wasn’t going to reveal this until a little later, but I don’t actually _have_ eyes.”

 She stares.

 “This will come as a shock,” he tells her, bringing his thumb and forefinger just below his neck. “But I’m not exactly the devilishly handsome man that you think I am.”

 And then he taps his collarbones, and his face melts away to reveal a grinning skeleton with empty eye sockets.

 There’s a long pause.

 “Ah,” Stephanie says. “I think I’m going to faint.”

 “Fair enough,” he says, and the last thing she sees is him darting to catch  her as she falls to the ground.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skulduggery and Stephanie get to know each other a little better. Erskine breaks his knuckles. And we see a few familiar faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Mooncactus who continues to be an Amazing and Supportive beta, god bless...

When Stephanie wakes up, she’s leant against a tree with her coat buttoned up, in front of a small but warm little fire.

 It takes her a couple of seconds to realise where she is, and then she’s scrambling to her knees, looking around for Skulduggery, who is sitting just to her right, his skull bare and bright in the darkness.

 “Hello,” he says cheerily.

 She stares at him, and motions at her head. “So I wasn’t dreaming that part, then?”

 He shakes his head. “Alas, no.”

 She then notices the bound and unconscious form shackled almost, but not quite, out of sight next to him.

 “Who-?”

 “The vampire you incapacitated,” he says. “Which, by the way, is not a sentence I say often. I’m impressed, and that’s a sentence I never say at  _ all _ if I can help it.”

 Her knees are a little wobbly, but she leans forward to look at it. It’s significantly less terrifying than it was when it was rushing her, but she doesn’t exactly want to reach out and pet it, either.

 “Impressive work,” Skulduggery says. “I’ve not seen Carving used directly for combat like that.”

 “It was do or die,” Stephanie shrugs, trying not to ogle his bare skull.

 “Yes, well,” Skulduggery says. “Most people opt for the latter.”

 “I thought… vampires were meant to be…”  

 He looks at her. Without a face it’s difficult to read his tone, but there’s something of amusement in his voice. “Sexy?”

 “Maybe,” she says defensively. “What are you going to do with it?”

 Skulduggery waves the fire a little bit higher, and she gratefully stretches her hands towards it, warming them.

 “We’ll take them back to a cell,” he says. “And then we’ll interrogate it.”

 “It didn’t look much like it could talk.”

 “Oh, it will turn back soon,” he says, waving a hand dismissively. 

 They sit in silence, Stephanie fidgeting.

 “So,” she begins.

 He inclines his head towards her. “Go on, then.”

 She motions to, well,  _ all _ of him. “You’re a skeleton.”

 “You know,” he says. “Your powers of observation? Astonishing.”

 The dryness in his voice brings some strength back into her. “Hey,  _ I’m _ the one that took that vampire down. What did you do, again?”

 “I was recuperating,” he protests. “Have  _ you _ ever had a leg torn off?”

 Stephanie can’t believe she  _ fainted _ . What an old woman thing to do, over  _ him _ . Like his ego isn’t huge enough already.

 “So are you going to explain this whole thing you got going on, or?”

 “What does  _ that _ mean?” he says. “It’s not a  _ fashion _ choice. I didn’t roll out of bed and think,  _ you know what’s in vogue right now? The flesh stripped from my bones. _ ”

 “So how’d it happen?”

 He looks at the fire. Or at least, in the direction of it. With those empty eyes, he could be looking anywhere.

 “Do you know much about sorcerer history?”

 “The bare bones of it,” she says, and even as she says it she cringes.

 “Do you know about the First War?”

 “World War One?”

 He laughs. “No, but I can’t blame you for making that mistake.” He waves his fingers in a rolling pattern, and the flames dance with the motion. 

 “A very long time ago,” he begins, “Us sorcerers had a war. A bad one.”

 “Worse than the Uprising?” Stephanie asks.

 “No. Not quite. In any case, I was one of the leading good guys. And one of the leading bad guys killed me to make a point.”

 Stephanie waits expectantly, expecting him to clarify a little, but he says nothing. She squints at him. “Seriously? That’s it? That’s your incredible tale of resurrection?”

 He looks at her. “It’s a long story, and we don’t have a lot of time to spare.”

 Stephanie crosses her arms. “Well, I’m gonna need a little longer to recover from being underwhelmed. And also, from  _ fending off a monster by myself _ .”

 They stare at each other, and then Skulduggery sighs. 

 “It’s not much of a bedtime story,” he warns her.

 “I’m not going anywhere,” she replies. “Entertain me.”

 He sighs again. “Mevolent, who I’m sure you’ve heard of, was the leader of the bad guys. He had a pretty big army, and they were pretty set on making a ruckus. And of course, those of us who refused to fall in behind them found ourselves standing up to him, instead.

 “We were winning, too. After decades of fighting him, of this little war, we were  _ finally _ winning. Mevolent’s support was crumbling, his influence fading, and he ordered one last, desperate strike against us.”

 Stephanie stared at him, lost in his voice. He talks like this is nothing, like it’s a story, but there’s old tension in the way he sits, like a long healed wound that still twinges when the weather turns, and she slightly regrets using the phrase  _ entertain me _ so lightly.

 “I went up against his right-hand man. He had laid out a wickedly exquisite trap. And I didn’t suspect a thing until it was too late.” He pauses, and says, so casually:

 “So, I died.” He looks straight at her with those empty eye sockets. “They stuck my body up on a pike and burned it for everyone, as a warning, and it  _ worked _ .”

 “What do you mean?”

 “The tide turned. Mevolent got stronger, and my allies got weaker, and it was more than I could stand. So I came back.”

 Stephanie stares at him. “You just  _ came back _ ?”

 He shrugs. “I’ve never heard of it happening before that, and I haven’t heard of it since, but I am, as they say, pretty exceptional.”

 She decides to let this pass.

 “Anyway, I woke up a literal bag of bones. They had gathered me up, put me in a bag, and tossed me into a river. So that was a marvellous new experience right there. And then I put myself back together, which was extremely painful and difficult considering I didn’t know my tibia from my fibula at the time, and rejoined the fight.” He pauses, looks back at the fire. 

 “We won, obviously, and with that done and dusted, I quit that whole scene and struck out on my own for the first time in a few hundred years.”

 She blinks at this. She knows sorcerers age much slower, but a few  _ hundred _ ? “How old are you, exactly?”

 Skulduggery thinks on this. “Over four hundred years, now. Not sure exactly though. Time muddles together a little bit once you hit a hundred and fifty.”

 “Wow,” she says. “You’re  _ old _ -old.”

 “Thanks,” he says wryly.  

 “How does that disguise work?” She asks. “Why are they always different faces?

 “Ah, you mean my facade? China made it for me just after the Uprising. And we change them so no-one recognises me.” He hesitates. “It has just occurred to me that I should probably impress the importance of you not telling people that I am still alive.”

 “Why not?”

 “Well, strictly speaking, I’m supposed to be dead.”

 She looks at him. He looks at her.

 “Deader,” he amends.

 “You mean when you died, you didn’t tell anyone you came  _ back _ ?”

 “Oh, no, I wasn’t going to keep a magical marvel such as myself from the world. During the Uprising, however, Serpine thought he killed me, and I’m not about to let him know otherwise. I’m somewhat of a secret weapon,” he adds smugly.

 “Right,” she says doubtfully.

 “In any case,” he says, standing up, “If you’re feeling better, we should head back to the caves.”

 He offers her his hand. She lets him pull her up, and he hoists the unconscious vampire over his shoulder.  “What about the rest of the sigil clusters?”

 Skulduggery shakes his head. “They’re fine, I checked them while you were out cold. Not a scratch in sight.”

 And then he starts walking. She squints at him.

 “You left me in the dark forest? Alone?”

 “You weren’t alone,” he calls over his shoulder. “I left Dracula here with you.”

 “Wow, that makes me feel  _ so _ much better,” she mutters.

 

-

 

By the time they make it back to the caves, the sun is just cresting over horizon. It’s been a long time since Stephanie enjoyed a sunrise, and even though she’s exhausted, there’s something refreshing about that light, filtering through the leaves all soft and gentle.

 Skulduggery isn’t exactly talkative on the way back, and he actually stops and  _ waits _ for her to catch up several times. Stephanie watches as across the hours, the vampire slowly turns human again, growing out and reducing in sharpness, hair sprouting steadily from its scalp. It’s a disconcerting thing, a person brand new, and she can’t quite make out if they’re a man or woman, all fresh and soft still.

 “Do you recognise them?” she asks him.

 “No,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean much. Ask me again once it’s generated properly.”

 The vampire, still unconscious, doesn’t answer. Stephanie stays out of its reach anyway.

 Erskine meets them at the entrance to the caves. He’s surprised when he sees the vampire, still not quite human yet.

 “You took out a vamp?” he asks Skulduggery.

 “No,” Skulduggery says, and there’s an odd tone in his voice. “This was Valkyrie’s work.”

 Erskine looks at her with something almost  _ respectful _ .

 “Nice work,” he says.

 “Thank you,” she says automatically.

 “Pass it here,” Erskine says to Skulduggery, who hauls the body onto his shoulder. “I’ll take it to the Interrogation room.” 

 He’s halfway down another corridor before he turns back and hollers, “Don’t forget to put your face back on!”

 “Ah,” Skulduggery says, and taps his collarbones; a new face flows up, an East Asian man with thin lips and thinner eyebrows. “Nearly forgot.”

 “How  _ does  _ it work?” Stephanie asks him, as he leads her down one of the many winding hallways. “Your facade, I mean. You didn’t say.”

 “I’ll show you later,” he says, waving aside a rock wall to reveal that room where she first met them all. “ _ If _ you ask nicely.”

 Corrival and Dexter sit inside, both looking half-awake and holding mugs of something hot and steaming. Skulduggery pulls out a chair for her with a little gust of wind, and as she sits down she realises she is monumentally  _ starving _ .

 Saracen walks in a few seconds after them, his arms laden with a giant tray of breakfast foods, and Stephanie all but falls upon them as Skulduggery sits down next to her.

 “Valkyrie,” he begins, in a strong voice, “Did a very good job out there.”

 “I expected nothing less,” Corrival begins, smiling at Stephanie.

 “She beat a  _ vampire _ ,” Skulduggery continues, and Corrival, Dexter’s and Saracen’s faces display a complicated mix of fear, impressed, and horrified all at once. 

 “Are you okay?” Corrival asks her. “Did it bite you?”

 “No,” she mumbles through a mouthful of egg.

 “How did you do it?” Dexter asks her eagerly. She blinks at him, still trying to swallow.

 “She carved a sigil into it,” Skulduggery says happily.

 “You can  _ do _ that?” Saracen says.

 “Erskine’s taken it to the interrogation cells,” Skulduggery continues. “Hopefully, whoever they are, they can tell us something of use.”

 “Good work, my dear,” Corrival tells Stephanie. 

 Dexter shakes his head. “A  _ vampire _ ,” he says wondrously. 

 “So, we know what killed those people,” Saracen says. “But how’d it get in?”

 “One of the sigil clusters was scratched,” Stephanie says. “Skulduggery and I fixed it, but that would have been enough to let it through.”

 Corrival is silent for a moment. “I’ll send a proper team out to comb the safe zone and check nothing else got through as well. The last thing we need is another vampire roaming the forest.”

 “The question is,” Skulduggery says slowly, “Is how the cluster was conveniently damaged in right spot to let something through in the first place.”

 “You think Serpine’s people got out here?” Corrival asks him.

 He shrugs. “Maybe. But if Serpine knew we were here, the entire forest would be full of sorcerers. It doesn’t add up.”

 There’s a tenseness in the air Stephanie doesn’t care for, and she’s very glad she’s been stuck in that cell, out of the way of any blame.

 Corrival says levelly, “Let’s see what the vampire has to say, first.”

 Skulduggery glances at Stephanie, who is licking toast crumbs off her fingers.

 “Are you finished?”

 “Yeah,” she says. He stands up.

 “Time to put you to bed,” he says, and Stephanie raises a brow, as does Corrival. Dexter has a look on his face that suggests the mouthful of coffee is suddenly very eager to get out and say hello.

 Skulduggery looks back at the three of them. “Twelve year olds,” he says dryly, as Stephanie stands up as well, brushing the crumbs from her pants. “I’m dealing with  _ twelve year olds _ .”

 She readies her tongue to say something barbed, but she sees a tiny little grin ticking at the corner of his mouth as he turns, and the retort dies on her lips.

-

 

Skulduggery leaves her in her room with a clap on her back and a smile that she thinks might be genuine. She has a long shower, admiring the several mottled bruises that have appeared on her, and then crawls into bed and almost instantly conks out.

 She doesn’t dream, and wakes up roughly six hours later feeling sore but well rested and warm and comfortable, and quite unwilling to get out of bed.So she doesn’t, instead pulling one of the rolled up plans that Skulduggery brought in from his traipse across the country and unfurling it across the bed. 

 The plans are in China’s handwriting, and it’s only with these in front of her she really understands the complexity of what it is they were doing. A dismay unlike any other dawns on her at these carefully drafted sigil groups. This is beyond anything she’s ever seen.

 And if everything and everyone is depending on her deciphering this, there’s going to be a problem.

 Stephanie doesn’t recognise half of these sigils; they remind her in fact of old Norse glyphs, of Chinese seal scripts, ancient writing that predates her. In fact, the plans themselves are too clean, too perfect; even China, the epitome of perfection, had scribbles on her more complex plans. 

 As she rifles through the other papers, bringing some of them so close to her face that her eyelashes brush against the paper, an uncomfortable understanding dawns on her; that these plans are  _ old _ . Someone made these, long ago, someone probably long dead, someone whose notes are long gone. She gnaws on her lip, and her stomach rumbles, bringing her back to the present. 

 It’s nearly two in the afternoon, well past time for lunch. Stephanie pulls her hair back into a bun, drags herself out of bed and gets dressed. Once that’s done, she moves the thick books and rolled up plans to the little desk, rolls up her sleeves.

 It’s been almost a decade or so since she had to study, and she isn’t particularly looking forward to it. So it’s a godsend when someone knocks on the wall, and the rocks rumble out of the way.

 “Hello,” Skulduggery says.

 “Hey,” she says, gratefully closing the books. 

 He takes a seat on her bed, and the rock crumbles back shut. She raises a brow.

 “Is this a social visit?”

 He shrugs, and the facade melts off his face to reveal that grinning skull. It still takes her by surprise, but it’s not as shocking as before. 

 “I was bored,” he says, in that mellifluous voice. 

 “Right,” she says. “And you don’t have anyone else to bother?”

 He shrugs again, but it’s a different shrug, she notices, though she’s not sure what the difference is.

  “Have you made any headway with the vampire?” Stephanie asks him awkwardly. He sits on the bed with his legs crossed and is impossibly still. He doesn’t even fidget. 

 “No. The vampire’s still quite unconscious. Probably dreaming of blood, or meat, or whatever it is monsters dream about.”

“Why haven’t they woken up?”

Skulduggery shrugs again. “Who knows? Maybe they’re enjoying their beauty sleep.”

“You don’t think I  _ killed  _ them, did you?” she asks, a sudden horrible thought occuring to her. What she did was a moment born of desperation, and she’s never read anything about the effect it might have on a living being. It may have tried to kill her, but if there’s a person under there...

 “Vampires are pretty hard to kill,” he assures her. “Decapitation is the only reliable thing that does them in.” He turns his head to the clock. She’s not sure if he’s looking in that direction, though. It’s hard to tell. “In any case, our resident doctor will be looking them over. If it  _ is _ the sigil that’s doing it, all he has to do is heal it up, and it should be fine.”

 “And then what?”

 “Then,” Skulduggery says, “Some interrogation. Maybe a little light torture, if required?”

 Stephanie grimaces. “Torture? Aren’t you the good guys?”

 Skulduggery turns his head back towards her, and she’s certain he’s looking at her now. “We’re at war, Valkyrie. Needs must.”

 She crosses her arms. “And where do you draw the line?”   
 “That’s not up to me,” he says simply, and then changes the subject. “I trust you’ve looked at those plans I so considerately delivered to you?”

 She sags in her chair. 

 “That’s not an encouraging response.”

 She takes out the plans and unfurls them. “Look at them.”

 He nods. “It’s certainly a piece of paper.”

 “They’re a finished product,” she says. 

 “Well, I wasn’t going to get you something half-baked.”

 “No-” she says, frustrated. “These are  _ old _ . This design is  _ old _ .”

 “I must confess,” he says, that dangerous tone edging into his voice again, “I have no idea what the problem is. You needed the plans, so I got you the plans.”

 “Okay, well,” she begins, and ticks them off on her fingers. “There’s no guarantee these are the plans that China was going off, and if they are, she could have changed them significantly. Secondly, these are  _ copies _ of the original finished plans, so there’s no notes or anything useful on them, and finally, because they’re old, I’m worried a lot of these sigils won’t be in the books I brought with me.”

 Skulduggery straightens a little. “You’re a lot sharper than I initially thought,” he murmurs.

 “Thanks,” she says dryly.

 “But in rebuttal; those are the plans Serpine supplied to China, under express orders not to change anything; only Serpine has the originals, and lucky for you, we have a substantial library. You don’t need to panic quite yet.”

 “I wasn’t panicking,” she mutters. “How do you know Serpine has the originals?”

 “I suspect this design is Mevolent’s,” Skulduggery says. “And I know for a fact that Serpine has his writings, because he boasted of his collection to me while he tortured me for several months before the Uprising.”

 The undercurrent of bitterness in his voice surfaces abruptly, a snake in water, but it’s gone just as quickly as it arrived.

 “How did he torture you?” she asks, curiosity briefly overtaking her common sense. “You’re a skeleton.”

 Skulduggery doesn’t say anything for a second, and then he unfurls a small flame in his hand, angles his jaw up.  The flames light in the inner darkness of his eye sockets, illuminating, in each eye, how a circle has been carved in. For a second, she doesn’t understand what she’s seeing, but then he shifts slightly and the light passes a smaller circle in his right eye socket. 

 She feels sick at the sight of it. “Is that…?”

 He leans back. “The insignia of the Faceless? Yes.” He closes his fingers over the flame and it extinguishes. “On the hundred and thirty second day of my second holiday in Serpine’s castle, he Carved them into me.”

 Stephanie, quite before she thinks about her actions, reaches across and grabs him by the jaw, angling his skull back up so she can look at them. He’s cool to the touch, worn a little smooth, and he freezes at her touch. She doesn’t notice initially, too busy examining those awful marks. They’re deep into the bone, a clean but savage cut. She wonders, briefly, what the effect of these marks might have. But sometimes, marks are just marks, and she tilts his jaw to the left, she realises just how still he is.

 Instantly, she lets go of him, feeling the tips of her ears burn in embarrassment.

 “Sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have- I didn’t-”

 “It’s fine,” he says a little roughly, leaning back on the bed. They sit in silence for a few seconds, and then something beeps softly. Skulduggery reaches into his inner coat pocket and takes out a little communicator.

 “Finbar?” he says.

 “ _ Hey, Skul-man,” _ Finbar says. “ _ The vamp’s awake.” _

 “And what does that have to do with me?”

 “ _ Erskine needs an expert’s eye.” _

 “I’ll be down there shortly,” Skulduggery says, and stows the communicator back in his coat, standing up.

 “Care to join me?” he asks her, his facade flowing back up. He offers his elbow to her, and she laughs, despite herself, 

 She shrugs. “I’ve got nowhere else to be,” she says, and he opens the rock back to the outside world.

 She doesn’t loop her arm through his, though. That’d be a bit much.

 

-

 

The cell the vampire is being held in is several corridors away; a short distance, but Stephanie feels every step like she’s been stabbed in several spots over her body. She grimaces, forcing herself to stretch out as they go, and her thighs are feeling a little better when they come down a flight of roughly hewn stairs to find Finbar standing outside a stretch of wall.

 “Hey, Val.” He smiles. “Heard you saved Skul’s life?”

 “There’s not much left to save,” she quips, and he laughs. 

 “As amusing as this incredibly original banter is,” Skulduggery says, “We came here to work.”

 “I haven’t had a look at the vamp yet,” Finbar says. “Erskine’s been trying to get some answers out of him but he won’t budge, and he’s hesitant to let me in there without someone else to back him up if all hell breaks loose.”

 “Well, between me and Valkyrie, I’m sure we’ll manage,” Skulduggery says. “Let’s take a look at him, then.”

 He waves the wall open and the two of them go in while Finbar waits outside. Stephanie watches him wave as the rock closes back over.

 It’s a pretty traditional interrogation room, as far as things go; a stark light on an uncomfortable looking chair, where the vampire slouches in, wrists and legs and torso and neck bound by chains that Stephanie recognises as covered in sigils of binding, of restriction. 

 Erskine stands next to where they came in, in the gloom. From here, they can only see the back of the vampire’s head.

 “He’s not talking,” Erskine says calmly. Stephanie can see his knuckles are bloodied, and her stomach clenches at the implications of it, hot disgust and anger rising at the back of her neck.

 “He’s a vampire,” Skulduggery says, utterly nonplussed. “They aren’t much for conversation. Mind if I take a look?”

 Erskine shrugs, and gestures to the figure. 

 “With me, Valkyrie,” Skulduggery says, and steps forward into the light. She comes around to face the figure as well but keeps back in the gloom, out of the way, unsure what she’s meant to be doing. As she comes to the vampire’s front, her stomach clenches in queasy anticipation of how battered Erskine has left them.

 The vampire’s a teenager, probably near his twenties, and he looks down at his knees. There’s smears of blood on his face but she can’t see any wounds, no swelling or bruises to match those smears of red on Erskine’s knuckles, which is a significant relief. It’s surprising how  _ healthy _ he looks, actually; healthy in a way that wouldn’t look out of place on an advertisement for skincare. The boy looks so  _ human _ , so disconcertingly at odds with the monster that wanted to tear her face off. If she saw him on a street, she wouldn’t look twice.

 Skulduggery circles him slowly, his new face impassive. She can see those fake eyes carefully scanning him.

 “Can you hear me?” he asks.

 The vampire looks up but says nothing. He nods.

 “You’ve fed recently, haven’t you?” Skulduggery says conversationally. He looks back at Stephanie. “See how his skin is practically glowing? Vampires usually look fresh after they grow back their human skin, but he looks positively well fed; there’s no bags under his eyes, which is an indication of vampire malnourishment.”

 He pauses, and addresses the vampire. “You killed and ate several of our people. Granted,  _ incompetent  _ people, but still  _ ours _ .”

 The vampire shifts slightly. Skulduggery firmly places a hand on top of the boy’s head, turns the boy’s face from side to side. Stephanie sees the puncture marks on his neck, long scarred over, and then he turns the boy’s head to the other side; she sees the long sigil she Carved there. It’s scabbed, dark and dry, and she grimaces.

 Skulduggery lingers at this, and then squats in front of the boy so their eyes meet.

 “You can’t speak, can you?” he says calmly. 

 The vampire seems to hesitate, then nods. 

 Erskine sighs. “I broke my knuckles on him for nothing?”

 “Go get Professor Grouse,” Skulduggery says, not looking away from the vampire. “He needs to heal that sigil.”

 Skulduggery waves his hand and Erskine leaves through the brief hole that forms. Skulduggery sits on his haunches, still regarding the boy.

 “Excuse me for this,” he says, and reaches out, pulling the collar of the boy’s tattered shirt to the side.

 Stephanie leans in a little bit, and sees a serial number tattooed into his collarbone. 

 “Interesting,” Skulduggery murmurs, and then stands up. “What do you think?”

 Stephanie blinks. “Me?”

 “Yes. Tell me what you think.”

 She turns her gaze to the boy. There’s something…  _ off _ about him, and she can’t put her fingers on it. She leans into the light to look at him and his gaze fixes onto her immediately.

 “Uh,” she says, gathering her thoughts. “He looks maybe nineteen?”

 Skulduggery waves a hand. “What else?”

 “Well, he looks healthy,” she begins. “But not like he takes care of himself? His hairs shaggy, and his clothes are torn to hell, so. And that tattoo…”

 “Some good points,” Skulduggery says. “Here’s what I see.

 “Young male presenting vampire, turned at age eighteen. Roughly two hundred to three hundred years old, judging by the fading of his bite marks. Looks healthy due to a recent feeding but the clothes and lack of grooming suggest he either doesn’t have access to the necessary implements. More likely, judging by the recent tattoo  on his collarbone, he isn’t  _ allowed _ access to those implements. 

 “Furthermore,” Skulduggery continues, motioning Stephanie closer, “If you look at the tattoo more closely, you can see it’s been Carved, rather than inked. Quite recently in fact, judging by how dark it is. Vampire skin regenerates anew every time they return to their human form, so their tattoos have to be marked with special ink, or Carved, for it to stick. What does this tell us?”

 “That he’s a well-fed hobo?”

 “No,” Skulduggery replies patiently. “It tells us he was forcibly drafted into Serpine’s private vampire army, known colloquially as the Fangs.”

 At this, the vampire looks away from Stephanie, and Skulduggery nods.

 “Serpine usually leaves the vampire communities alone,” Skulduggery says slowly. “But those communities have an agreement with him.”

 Stephanie watches as Skulduggery circles the boy, coming around to grip the arm rests and lean in.

 “They turn over any vampire that breaks their laws to the Faceless Empire,” Skulduggery murmurs. He stares the vampire in the eyes. “What did you do?” Skulduggery asks the vampire, who looks back at him steadily. 

 Someone knocks on the wall; Skulduggery holds that gaze a little longer, and then straightens back up; waves the wall open.

 An old man comes in with Erskine, clutching something around his neck, eyes wide.

 “You told me he was asleep!” The old man says in a frantic voice. He backs up hits the freshly sealed solid rock.

 “He might as well be,” Erskine says reasonably. “He’s all bolted down.”

 The old man looks at Skulduggery, and frowns. He has a mean little face, and Stephanie is somewhat reminded of Aunt Beryl.

 “I knew you would be in the middle of all of this,” he says, pointing a wizened finger at him. 

 “Good afternoon to you too, Professor,” Skulduggery says calmly. “Would you please heal the scabbing on his neck?”

 Grouse stares at the vampire, who is looking back down. Whatever he’s gripping around his neck, he now holds so hard it looks as if his knuckles are about to split his skin.

 “You have nothing to fear,” Skulduggery continues. “He’s been very co-operative so far.”

 The professor approaches the boy like he’s still that snarling, raging beast. The vampire obligingly presents his neck, and Grouse very reluctantly leans in, adjusting his glasses, while his lower half attempts to remain several meters away.

 “Did… did someone cut a  _ sigil _ into his neck?” he says, baffled.

 “That would be Valkyrie, here,” Skulduggery says, and the professor looks at Stephanie in surprised, having obviously missed her in the gloom. 

 “This is very quick thinking, my dear,” Grouse, and curiosity replaces the fear in his eyes. “And a very neat cut, as well. I’ve never seen one cut into skin before like this,” he continues to mutter, and his lower half joins him closer to the chair. “And never one as a scab. Very interesting.”

 “Can you fix it?” Erskine says impatiently.

 “Of course I can,” the old man snaps at him. “Idiot.”

 Stephanie tries not to grin. She likes Grouse a lot more than Aunt Beryl.

 He takes out some salve and with a single finger, dots it onto the scab. Once the scab is slick with it, he holds his wrinkled hand over it and mumbles something, something low and fast. There’s a glow and when he takes his hand away, the scab is completely gone; all that’s left is the faintest shine of new skin in the shape she cut into him.

 Grouse steps back to admire his work and then suddenly seems to remember the boy is a vampire; he abruptly backs up against the wall.

 “Let me out please,” he says to Skulduggery. 

 Skulduggery obliges him; the professor sidles out through that hole so fast it looks like he’s crumbling the rock through sheer strength, and then he’s gone.

 The three of them turn back to the vampire, who is stretching his neck, opening and closing his mouth.

 “What’s your name, son?” Erskine says, crossing his arms.

 “I don’t have one anymore,” the vampire says. 

 “You must have been called something  _ once _ ,” Stephanie says, before she can stop herself.

 The vampire turns to look at her, that deep, unreadable  _ something _ in that gaze.

 “Caelen,” he says eventually. “My name is Caelen.”

 “That’s a start,” Skulduggery says.

 Erskine advances on the boy, cracking his knuckles. “Now, I do have to apologise for my earlier behaviour,” he admits. “That was a mistake on my part. But I’ll have to do it again if you don’t tell us what we need to know.”’

 “He’s just a kid,” Stephanie protests. “Look at him!”

 “He’s over two hundred years old,” Skulduggery reminds her. “And he tried to kill you last night.”

 Stephanie falters. 

 “I understand your… distaste,” Erskine says gently. “But there’s a lot more at stake here than a renegade vampire’s face.”

 “No shit,” she shoots back, temper flaring at Erskine’s condescending tone, “But there’s no need to threaten him, either. He’s cooperating. Cut him some  _ slack. _ ”

 Caelan doesn’t look away from Stephanie, and says nothing. Stephanie steps towards him, and Caelan finally looks up.

 “What do you want to know?” Caelan asks her.

 “How did you get here?” Erskine says impatiently. “How did you find us?”

 Caelan shrugs, still not looking away from Stephanie. “I was in my cage, and then I woke up in the forest. Without any serum.”

 “You’re normally given serum?” Skulduggery asks.

 “I’m a monster,” Caelan says, and the casualness of that statement chills her. “I’m not safe to be around without it.”

 Erskine steps away, thinking, and Caelan keeps staring at her. She prickles under that gaze, uncomfortable.

  Skulduggery steps in front of her. 

 “Were you given any instruction?” Erskine tries.

 Caelan shakes his head. “No.”

 “We may have to bring the Sensitives in,” Skulduggery murmurs to Erskine. “Someone’s installed a psychic block on him.”

 “Or he just doesn’t want to talk,” Erskine retorts quietly, coming over to Skulduggery. Stephanie can see Caelan through the middle of them arguing, still staring at her. It suddenly occurs to her that he might want a bit of revenge for being stabbed in the neck and dragged into the enemy’s cell. She swallows.

 “Caelan,” Skulduggery says. The boy looks at him. “I’m going to bring in some friends of ours who are going to look your mind over.”

 “Okay,” Caelan starts to say, and Skulduggery holds up his hand; the vampire falls silent. He leans in. Stephanie can’t help but think, for a second, of predators sizing each other up.

  Skulduggery says in a very quiet, very matter-of-fact tone, “They are going to inspect every inch of your brain. If you are hiding anything of note from us, we will know. And we will act accordingly. Do you understand?”

 “Yes.”

 Skulduggery straightens. “Right,” he nods. “Glad we had that little chat. We’ll be back with some serum and our friends shortly.”

 He turns, and waves the walls open; Stephanie follows him out. Finbar is still waiting there, leaning against the wall; his head rests against the rock, eyes closed.

“Finbar,” Skulduggery says. Finbar opens his eyes and blinks blearily at him. “We’re going to get some serum for the vampire. Once it’s been injected, I need you and Cassandra to comb him.”

 “Okie doke,” Finbar says, and starts humming a song. Skulduggery leads her down an unfamiliar hallway. 

 “Are all vampires that creepy?” she asks him.

 “A lot of them,” Skulduggery replies. “But he seemed especially fixated on you.”

 “I’m gorgeous,” she shrugs, trying not to think of how those fangs had gnashed. “And he’s an eighteen year old boy.”

 “He’s at least two hundred years old,” Skulduggery reminds her again. “And you stabbed him in the neck.”

 She shrugs. “But he’s trapped in a body full of hormones. All I’m saying,” she says, a forced smile, “Is that I’m a tall glass of water.”

 Skulduggery opens his mouth as if to rebut this, but clearly thinks better of it, and she’s trying not to think about the fact there’s a monster in here with them that is very possibly out for her blood, so they come to the rough hewn wooden door in silence.

 Skulduggery opens it into a huge room, full of all sorts of things she hasn’t seen for a decade; an overwhelming combination of a professional chemist’s lab and a doctor’s practice. 

 Professor Grouse is sitting at a desk to the side of the room, hunched over a microscope, and he glances up at them as they enter.

 “Haven’t you scared me enough for one day?” he barks.

 “The scaring is over,” Skulduggery assures him. “I was hoping you had some serum for the vampire.”

 Irritably, Grouse waves his hands at the many liquids in the room. “I have a lot of serums for vampires, Detective. I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.” He looks at Stephanie, and squints at her. “You must be the new girl that Duece won’t shut up about, then. Call me Kenspeckle.”

 “It’s a pleasure,” she says, moving across the room to shake his offered hand; her thigh muscles seize up and she trips. Kenspeckle stares down at her.

 “She’s a little clumsy,” Skulduggery apologises.

 “Shut up,” Stephanie says, groaning as she stands up.

 “Are you quite alright, my dear?” Kenspeckle asks her.

She jabs her thumb behind her in Skulduggery’s general direction. “He dragged me around for several hours and then I had to save him from that vampire. I’m a little sore.”

 Kenspeckle hums, climbing off his stool and going over to a cabinet. He rummages for a few seconds, then pulls out a brown paper bag.

 “When you have a shower tonight,” he tells her, “Rub this where ever it hurts. It’ll alleviate the pain.” He passes the bag, and smiles at her.

 “We need more people like you,” he says, and his brows pinch together at Skulduggery. “People who the Skeleton Detective  _ can’t _ boss around.”

 “I can boss her around plenty,” Skulduggery mutters, before Stephanie can ask him about this title.”Do you have any of the serum or not, Professor?”

 He glares at him. “I think I might, actually.” He delves back into that cabinet; things clink and tinkle and he comes out with a little case of syringes, and passes it to Stephanie.

 “I’m the resident doctor here,” he tells her. “If you have any medical concerns, you come straight to me, alright?”

 “Alright,” she nods.

 “And keep him in line,” Kenspeckle adds, glaring at Skulduggery. Then he turns back to his desk and apparently, forgets about them.

 “Charming guy,” she says to Skulduggery as they walk back to the cell. 

 “He was positively cuddly with you,” Skulduggery says. “If I cared, I’d be jealous.”

  They come back to Finbar, who is apparently asleep standing up, and Cassandra, who is waiting quite patiently.

 Skulduggery opens the wall and the three of them go in. Erskine is sitting in a chair nearby, arms crossed.

 “I’m going to inject this serum,” Skulduggery says to Caelan, taking out a syringe. She can’t see his face but she sees his fists clench as Skulduggery approaches.

 “I want her to do it,” Caelan says. “I know she’s behind me. I can  _ smell  _ her.”

 Skulduggery glances over the boy’s head at Stephanie, who is frantically gesturing  _ absolutely not. _

__ “It’s going to hurt regardless of who does it,” Skulduggery says eventually. “And I’m a lot more durable than her, in case you’re thinking of pulling a fast one on us.”

 Caelan has a low growl rumbling in his throat but it subsides and he tensely nods; Skulduggery rolls up the sleeve of his shirt and injects it into the crook of his elbow.

 “Alright,” Erskine says, nodding to the two psychics. “Go on.”

 “This won’t hurt,” Cassandra says to Caelan, who is now so tense that Stephanie can see the chair vibrating. Cassandra and Finbar place their hands over his shaggy head; moments pass, both of them concentrating, eye screwed shut, and then abruptly they both grimace, lift their hands away.

 “Someone’s put a very strong block on him,” Cassandra tells them. “We’ll need more time.”

 “Where’s the block?” Erskine asks.

 “It’s a blanket, man,” Finbar says. “It’s covering almost everything.”

 “But, like a blanket,” Cassandra says, “I can see the shape of what’s beneath it.”

 “That’s astoundingly unhelpful,” Erskine mutters.

 “Not at all,’ Skulduggery murmurs. “What can you see?”

 “Dublin,” Finbar says immediately. “Dublin, and blood.”

 “He did something bad,” Cassandra adds. “A long time ago, before the Uprising. And he did something foolish more recently. I can make out cages, injections. And he hunted several days ago. Even today’s events are a little foggy and hard to see.”

 “How long do you need?” Skulduggery asks. 

 “Hard to say,” Cassandra says, and Finbar nods. “More than an hour, less than a week.” 

 “That’s… not ideal,” Erskine says.

 “None of this is ideal,” Skulduggery mutters. “Alright,” he says, more loudly. “Do what you need to do. Stephanie, come with me.”

 They leave the room, and Stephanie is glad to have that solid rock between her and the vampire.

 “What do we do with an amnesiac vampire?” he asks her as they walk.

 “Is this a trick question?” Stephanie replies, and starts humming the old sea shanty,  _ Drunken Sailor. _

 “We work the case backwards,” Skulduggery says, but she sees a little smile on those thin lips. 

 “Alright...” Stephanie says, as if she knows what that means.

 “So, most recently: we caught the vampire. Before that, the vampire kills our people. The vampire wakes up in the forest. The sigil clusters are damaged. The vampire goes to sleep in his cage.” Skulduggery pauses, and she stops as he does.

 “What?”

 “We’re missing an essential part. How does the vampire  _ get  _ here?” he asks her.

 She shrugs. “Maybe they have a teleporter circle?”

 “No,” he says, shaking his head. “But they do have  _ Teleporters. _ ”

 Stephanie looks at him blankly. “As in the sci-fi technology?”

 “As in the people,” he corrects her. “A very specialised and very valuable type of Adept magic.”

 He abruptly turns around and goes back in the opposite direction; she follows him.

 “Where are we going?” she asks him.

 “My knowledge on teleportation is restricted,” Skulduggery admits. “And who better to ask than our resident Teleporter himself?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK U ALL all the lovely comments have been so good.... im so glad you're all enjoying it!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephanie learns a little more about Skulduggery and his gumshoe past. Ghastly mourns the loss of modern fashion. There's also some really good pizza.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Mooncactus who continues to be an Amazing and Supportive beta, god bless...

Skulduggery leads her down twisting stone halls, and Stephanie can  _ feel _ the weight of the mountain above them as they descend lower and lower, a presence that is as foreboding as the sun, as the moon.

 But there’s a beauty too, here; the lower they go, the more the rock becomes expressive, crystalised patterns shining through. They’re so luminescent that the lanterns trickle off until the way is lit entirely by the rocks, a natural light that Stephanie could mistake for daylight. It helps ease that pressure some.

 They come out of this hallway into a huge room, and the sound of rushing water greets them, sinuous and powerful; a stretch of rock over across a river. 

 “From here is the residential area,” Skulduggery informs her, crossing the natural formed bridge. The glowing crystals zigzag across his path, and she follows him, looking over the side.

 Even through the water, there’s that luminescence too.

 “Are these rocks magic?”

 “No,” he says. “Well, maybe. It’s not high on our list of things to investigate.”

 “Pretty, though.”

 “Indeed.”

 The residential sector is a little more artificially laid out, and as they pass further through it, the natural cragginess of the walls gives way to smooth rock, an architect’s hand amongst nature. Wooden doors are carefully installed into archways, rough but strong. They pass people in the halls, mortals, just like her, laughing and chatting and moving. They look so relaxed it pangs Stephanie’s heart, reminds her of Haggard before the Uprising. None of them even spare her a glance, like this is normal, like this is fine.

 “So, what’s this Teleporter like?” Stephanie asks, running her fingers along the smooth stone, cool and reassuring. Sturdy.

 “He leaves much to be desired,” Skulduggery mutters.

 “Wow. That’s… charming.”

 “He’s a little older than you,” Skulduggery says. “And substantially less impressive.”

 Stephanie, despite herself, is a little tickled.

 “Here we are,” Skulduggery says suddenly, stopping in front of a door, one that looks a little older than the ones near to it. “Now, before you go in. Don’t mention the hair.”

 “Uh.”

 “Just, don’t.”

 “Alright,” Stephanie shrugs, and then Skulduggery raps on the door twice, sharply.

 “Who is it?” Someone replies.

 “Who else would it be?” Skulduggery replies drolly, and the door opens.

 The Teleporter looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, a little greasy. Blond hair hangs limply around his eyes, and stubble prickles at his angular jaw. He looks younger than she expected, but is impressed with how she connects the dots; if he’s a magic user, that must be why he looks to be barely in his early twenties, rather than close to thirty.

 The first thing Stephanie really notices, though, is the rugged, angry scar that marks where his right thumb used to be, stretching up underneath his long sleeved shirt.

 “What do you want?” He asks Skulduggery, not even looking at Stephanie, who bristles.

 “Fletcher, this is Valkyrie,” Skulduggery says. “She’s helping myself and the Dead Men. I just wanted to ask you some questions.”

 Fletcher drags his eyes to Stephanie, then back to Skulduggery. For a second, she thinks he isn’t going to let them in. But then he sighs,and his shoulders droop, and he steps back, opening the door. 

 Stephanie wrinkles her nose as they step in; Skulduggery doesn’t have a real nose, of course, so he’s safe; unfortunately, she isn’t.

 It’s the room of a teenage boy or a bachelor; clothes on the ground, dirty or otherwise, sheets pulled back off the bed, a desk piled high with tattered paperbacks. A smell of… not body odor, but general uncleanliness, mustiness, pervades throughout the room. 

 Fletcher sits on the edge of the bed, and crosses his arms expectantly. He looks… kind of pitiful, actually. Like the life has been gently quashed out of him.

 “Well?” he prompts Skulduggery.

 “I assume Ghastly hasn’t updated you on the situation,” Skulduggery says. “But Valkyrie and I killed a vampire that someone managed to transport all the way out here. Without any of our alarms being tripped.”

 Fletcher scratches his jaw. “So?”

 Stephanie already dislikes him.

 “I suspect a teleporter is involved,” Skulduggery explains patiently. “I was wondering if you ever heard of this sort of thing?”

 “What, teleporting?”

 Something in the way Skulduggery stands tells Stephanie that he is unimpressed by what seems like Fletcher’s deliberate slowness.

 “No. Of teleporting without activating any sigils.”

 Fletcher shrugs. “I don’t know much about sigil magic. Could be done, I guess.”

 “Well,” Skulduggery says brightly, “When Serpine had you, did you speak with any of the other teleporters? Did anyone say anything that might indicate this was a possibility?”

 Fletcher’s face sours. “My mind wasn’t exactly on chatting with people, Detective.”

_ Detective _ . There it is again; she resolves to ask him about that once they leave this sad sack of a man.

 Skulduggery waves a hand; some clothes fall off the chair pulled out near the desk, and he sits down.  

“I need you to think  _ hard _ , Fletcher,” Skulduggery says. “A  _ vampire _ got in here. You’ve met vampires before, haven’t you?”

 Stephanie’s eyes drop to that stump of a thumb. Fletcher scowls.

 “And if we don’t find out how one snuck by us, the next time, we might not catch it until it’s waiting at our gates for the next unfortunate person to come out.”

 Fletcher shrugs defensively. “Look, the last time I was in the Citadel, I was a little preoccupied being tortured. And then being brainwashed. And then trying to escape. I didn’t much talk to anyone. I wasn’t exactly the full shilling, alright?”

 “But they taught you a little, while you were there, right?” Stephanie tries.  Skulduggery looks at her.

 Fletcher looks at her, and seems maybe a little less defensive. “Yeah, but it was basic magic principles. I was only a kid when they snatched me. They weren’t about to teach me how to teleport out of the place, were they?”

 “But-”

 “Look,” Fletcher says, running a hand over his face. “I want to help. I do. But if someone teleported in without activating those sigil alarms, they were experienced, and that’s about all I can say for sure.” He stands up. “Now, can you please leave me alone? I have things to do.”

 “Like what?” Stephanie says, annoyed. “Throwing your dirty clothes on the ground?”

 Fletcher’s eyes darken with annoyance. “Alright, out. Both of you.”

 “Always a pleasure, Fletcher,” Skulduggery says, and they both leave, the door slamming shut after them.

 “He was useless,” Stephanie mutters, staring at his door.

 “He’s our only Teleporter, unfortunately,” Skulduggery says. “But yes, useless is an apt description.”

 They start walking back towards the residential address. 

 “So what’s his problem, then?” Stephanie asks. “And why were you so emphatic on not talking about his hair? It was extremely unimpressive. I was expecting him to have no hair. Or too much hair. Like a wolf-man, or something.”

 “Fletcher was a POW,” Skulduggery says quietly. “When the Uprising first began, Serpine’s first point of call was to capture all the Teleporters he could, to stop us from being able to easily move about. Fletcher was just a kid at the time, about fifteen; he didn’t even know that the sorcerer community existed. He thought he was a mutant out of a comic book, and made the mistake of drawing a little too much attention to himself.”

 “And then Serpine tracked him down.”

 “Yes. When the Dead Men managed to break me out during an attack, Fletcher was one of the POW’s they sprung as well. Torture… wasn’t kind to him.”

 “I mean… isn’t that kind of the point?” 

 “Well. You’re not wrong.”

 “Anyway, what’s the deal with the hair?”

 “Ah, right. The hair. He used to be very proud of it. When we first brought him into the Sanctuary, he would spend hours preening over it. It was ridiculous, like a big blond hedgehog. And well, now…”

 “Sounds like he needs to pull himself together,” Stephanie mutters. “We’ve all been through some tough shit.”

 “Part of the problem is Fletcher is extremely high on Serpine’s wanted list. I imagine he’s quite anxious, knowing that we have a Teleporter on our side, however inexpert. Consequently, alarm sigils and sigils that disable anyone teleporting in are carved almost everywhere. It’s the reason I had to walk over Ireland for those plans, rather than just have Fletcher taxi me about. He hasn’t been able to use his magic for several years now, and as you can see, it isn’t going well for him.”

 “So, what do we do now?”

 They cross over the bridge.

 “Well,  _ I _ need to go see a man about a suit,” Skulduggery tells her. “You’re welcome to join me.”

 “We’re in the middle of a potential crisis,” Stephanie says slowly. “And you’re going to a  _ tailor _ ?”

 

-

 

The caves are much bigger than Stephanie could have originally comprehended; out of the residential sector, just after the bridge and down another long tunnel, and they come to the trade and food sector, which is positively bustling, mortals and sorcerers alike, all eating and drinking and trading and talking. Thick veins of crystal shoot through the ceiling, shining like the sun down on them.

 “So, why do people keep calling you ‘Detective’?” she asks him casually, hands in her pockets.

“Take a wild guess,” he replies, as they wait for someone pushing a huge cart of produce to pass in front of them. Stephanie rolls her eyes.

 “So you were  _ actually  _ a detective, then?”

 “That’s that the name implies,” he says, looking at her with a raised brow. 

 “The  _ Skeleton Detective _ ,” she says, trying it out. It runs off the tongue surprisingly well, and now Erskine needing his ‘expert eyes’ makes more sense. “Do you solve a lot of mysteries?”

 “Past tense detective, I’m afraid,” he says, leading her down the busy street. “But before the Uprising, yes, I did. I was quite well known for it,” he adds a little proudly.

 “I can see that,” Stephanie muses. “I bet you would loiter in dark alleyways, smoking cigarettes and helping distraught dames. Proper gumshoe style.”

 “It’s hard to smoke cigarettes without a mouth,” Skulduggery says. “Or lungs. But besides that, you’re absolutely right. I was the real deal.”

 “What was the last case you took?” she asks, taking a dry sort of joy in imagining it: a cramped little office, blinds through which the street lights filtered…

 Skulduggery clears the throat he doesn’t have. “Ah, yes, that case. The last case I took.”

 “Well?”

 “Oh, we’re here,” he says. “I’ll have to tell you another time.”  

 The tailor’s shop is down a little street, out of sight of most passerbys. A large stretch of plain rock with a single bell rung on the side. 

 “Try not to faint again,” Skulduggery tells her, and before she can ask him what on earth he’s talking about, still jarred by the sudden change in conversation, he rings the bell three times, three little tinkles, and then the wall rumbles open.

 The shop is simple, homely, but there’s an elegance to it too that reminds Stephanie of China’s secret apartments. Simple wooden furniture, several desk laden with sewing tools, a wall dedicated to bolts of fabric. A man sits with his back to them, and Stephanie can hear the comforting hum of a sewing machine at work.

 “I need a new suit,” Skulduggery says loudly, rumbling the wall shut behind them. That natural luminescence is in here too, but there’s a few lamps scattered around for brighter light. The man sighs.

 “I just  _ made _ you a new suit, Skul,” the man says. His voice is warm, rough, and exasperated.

 “Well,” Skulduggery says. “Now I need a  _ new _ new suit.”

 The sewing machine clicks to a stop, and the tailor stands up, turns to face them both. He’s as tall as Skulduggery, but where Skulduggery is thin, the tailor is thick with muscle that strains at an extraordinarily beautiful shirt and vest. Unfortunately, Stephanie can’t appreciate the suit when all she can look at is his face, thick, ridged scars pulling up at his lips, chunks out of his cheekbones and ears, knotted and terrible on his scalp like the bark of a tree.

 The tailor is unspeakably, pitifully, ugly.

 Stephanie drags her eyes away, conscious of how rude she’s being, for once. 

 “Ghastly,” Skulduggery says. “This is Valkyrie.”

 “So  _ you’re  _ Valkyrie,” Ghastly says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

 He offers his hand for her to shake. A few scars along his fingers and forearm, but nothing so brutal as the disfigurements on his face.

 “Pleasure,” Stephanie mumbles, shaking his hand, warm and dry. She has no idea where to look, how much time is too much time making eye contact. She decides to compromise by staring at his chest.

 “Oh, so you’ll faint over  _ me _ ,” Skulduggery grumbles, “But  _ Ghastly _ is fine?”

 “Yeah, but you’re ugly,” Stephanie shoots back, and Ghastly laughs.

 “It’s fine,” he says. “I’m used to it. Go on.”

 “No, it’s fine,” Stephanie says. “Really.”

 “Valkyrie,” Ghastly says, humor in his voice. “I literally named myself Ghastly. Get it out of your system.”

 She exhales a breath, and meets his eyes. Much like Skulduggery’s lack of skin, the scars are shocking, but then she sees behind them; a friendly smile, bright teeth against dark skin, warm eyes.

 “Uh,” Stephanie says awkwardly. “Has anyone ever told you you look like Terry Crews?”

 Ghastly roars with laughter. “That’s somewhat insulting to Mr. Crws,” he says. “But thank you.”

 “Ghastly here was cursed while he was still in the womb,” Skulduggery explains quietly. 

 “Yep,” Ghastly says cheerfully. “My good old mam had some serious enemies. She tried everything when I was born; magic, creams-”

 “Magical creams,” Skulduggery interjects.

 “But here I am,” Ghastly shrugs. And then he glares at Skulduggery. “And  _ why _ do you need a new suit, exactly?”

 “Valkyrie’s fault,” Skulduggery says. “Dragged me in the path of a vampire.”

 “I  _ saved _ you from a vampire,” Stephanie says, crossing her arms. “While you were flat on the ground, with half your leg off.”

 “The fabric actually tore?” Ghastly says, incredulously. “That’s… worrying. Perhaps don’t wear the rest of that suit again.”

 “Why on earth,” Skulduggery says, “Would I wear an incomplete suit?”

 “I think some of this fabric the English sanctuary smuggled over is dodgy,” Ghastly sighs. “I’ll have to chuck out the whole bolt now. I wish I had the old shop, I could have just woven some up myself.”

 He stands up and crosses to the wall of fabric, pulling out a bolt of fabric that matches Skulduggery’s torn suit, muttering to himself.

 “Ghastly made your clothes,” Skulduggery tells her. “You have him to thank for still being alive.”

 “Thank you,” Stephanie says immediately. “They’re amazing, and I love them.”

 Ghastly laughs, pulling out another bolt. “I’m glad. China had to send me her estimated measurements. Seems she has a keen eye as she ever did. I prefer to see the person, myself, but a good tailor can make do.” He dumps the rolls of fabric in a large fabric bin, and then puts his hands on his hips, looking at Skulduggery. “So, what color?”   
 “Orange,” Stephanie says. “An orange suit.”

 Skulduggery ignores this. “Charcoal.”

 “Boring,” Stephanie says dismissively. “How about a floral pattern?”

 “What is this,” Skulduggery says. “The Met Gala?”

 “God, I miss the Met Gala,” Ghastly sighs. “Alright, I’ll have the suit ready by the end of the week.”

 “That’s… longer than usual.”

 “Sorry,” Ghastly sighs. “With the new influx of refugees, there’s a lot of clothes needing to be made.”

 “Unacceptable, but I’ll have to allow it.”

 Ghastly pulls out a bold of deep grey fabric, sets it on one of the desks. “Dexter told me about the Scepter,” he says quietly, picking up a mug of coffee. “That’s…”

 “Terrifying?” Skulduggery suggests.

 “I was going to say incredible,” Ghastly admits. “But that too.” He pauses. “We should have believed you,” he adds quietly.

 “Ah, well,” Skulduggery shrugs. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty. The real question is why he hasn’t razed half the world yet.” He smoothes out some fabric on the desk near to him. “He could burn all of Ireland to the ground if he wanted.”

 Stephanie clears her throat, feeling a little left out. “Maybe,” she says, “He doesn’t know how to use it?”

 Ghastly shakes his head, but it’s a lot gentler than Skulduggery’s. “The Scepter, at least in our myths, is kind of a point-and-shoot thing.”

 “More likely he’s trying to study it,” Skulduggery says. “The Scepter has power beyond our comprehension. It connects to the Source like sigils do; it’s… for lack of a better word, an eldritch thing.”

 Ghastly sips his coffee. 

 “But enough about the impending doom of the world,” Skulduggery says. “Ghastly, how was your trip?”

 Ghastly shrugs. “Boring. You know Anton isn’t much for conversation.”

 “He is the epitome of strong and silent,” Skulduggery admits.

 “He was talking about asking Samuel to marry him though,” Ghastly continues. “So that was nice. Had a little buddy-buddy moment.”

 “That  _ is _ nice,” Skulduggery says. “Sickeningly so.”

 “The new recruit from England is also very nice,” Ghastly says, and there’s a tone in his voice that makes Stephanie suspect he’s blushing beneath that dark skin and those scars.

 “Ms. Low, is that right?” Skulduggery turns to Stephanie. “I’ll take you to meet her later, actually. She can teach you some proper self-defense techniques in case my leg falls off again.”

 Stephanie shrugs. “Alright.”

 “We almost had a run in with Sanguine again,” Ghastly adds. “He was hanging around the Cavan settlement.”

 “Mm,” Skulduggery says. 

 “Ah,” Ghastly smiles. “You didn’t just come here to talk shop, did you?”

 “Unfortunately not,” Skulduggery admits. “We spoke to Fletcher earlier about how the vampire might have got in, and he was astoundingly unhelpful. I was hoping, since you’re the one who managed to break him out of the teleporters’ holding cells, that you might have seen something during your stake-out.”

 Ghastly looks thoughtful. “What type of thing?”

 “Whoever teleported the vampire in would have done it in range of our teleporter alarm sigils, just outside of the array,” Skulduggery says. “They couldn’t have done that without something protecting them, or some technique I’m unfamiliar with.”

 Ghastly sets aside his mug and takes up a piece of fabric, continuing delicate stitching on it. “Well, to be fair, I was a little pressed for time,” he admits. “And I’m not an expert.”

“I’m fully aware of these things, yes,” Skulduggery nods.

“And my memory isn’t that great,” Ghastly continues.

“I’m aware,” Skulduggery says.

“And I wasn’t paying too much attention,” Ghastly says thoughtfully.

“Alright, we get it,” Skulduggery says. “Where’s the helpful part of this, where you give us a great lead?”

“Oh,” Ghastly says. “No, I didn’t see anything.”

Skulduggery gives him a look.

 “Hey,” Ghastly says. “I warned you. I gave you a full disclaimer.”

 “Great,” Skulduggery says, shoulders slumping.

 “I did see something odd recently, though,” Ghastly says after a few seconds. “When we were shepherding the latest group of refugees to the Circuit we had set up nearby, we got ambushed by a Cleaver. But… not a normal Cleaver. I saw one like him in Lucan, actually, but didn’t think much of it.”

 “Not normal how?” Stephanie asks.

 “Creepy,” Ghastly says immediately. “Creepy. And all in white.”

-

 

“He was nice,” Stephanie says, as they go to get some lunch. 

“Ghastly is one of the best men I know,” Skulduggery says. “And I’m not just saying that because he broke me out of Serpine’s prison.”

“It helps though, right?”

“Absolutely it does.”

“So,” she says, drawing out the word. “You gonna tell me about your mysterious final case, or what?”  

 They come into the main stretch of tunnel, and Skulduggery sighs. 

 “Your uncle,” he says.

 Stephanie frowns. “Gordon? What about him?”

 “Your uncle was my last case,” Skulduggery says quietly.

 “I don’t understand.”

 “When Gordon died,” Skulduggery says gently, “I… investigated. He had just told me he had discovered something fantastic, beyond my wildest dreams. The Scepter.”

 “ _ What?” _ Stephane exclaims. “I don’t- what?!”

 “Gordon knew about magic. It’s how we met, actually. In any case, the day after he told me, he suddenly died. A man, who while quite sedentary, in perfectly good health, suddenly dying after discovering an incredibly power and artefact? A mortal man with no magic, dying in a room flush with traces of it?”   
 “You think Serpine murdered him,” Stephanie says, mouth agape.

 “I  _ know _ he murdered him,” Skulduggery says darkly. “Mostly because Serpine bragged about it to me, but also because if Serpine just wanted the Scepter, he would have taken it. But I suspect it was the type of artefact that binds to the user; the moment Gordon touched the Scepter, Serpine had no choice but to kill him.”

 Stephanie doesn’t know what to do with this, this unexpected plot twist years late. 

 “Gordon likely hid the Scepter in the cave network beneath his house-”

 “Wait,  _ cave network _ ?”

 “Yes, keep up. Anyway, that’s when Serpine caught me. I came back to Gordon’s house to see if I could find where it had been hidden. Luckily, before I did, Serpine  ambushed me. And then took over the world shortly after, which is a whole other story.”

 “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” she asks, still reeling.

 “About the Scepter? I did. That’s what Ghastly was apologising for, actually.” Skulduggery’s voice becomes dark with bitterness now. “You don’t understand what it was like before the uprising for the sorcerer community, Valkyrie. Everyone was still recovering from the last war, and half of Mevolent’s followers, Serpine included, were granted amnesty for surrendering. No-one wanted to listen to me when I told them one of Mevolent’s Three Generals was after arguably the most powerful magical weapon in our collective history.”

 “Three?” she says, aghast. “Don’t tell me there’s another two giant assholes slurking around.”

 He chuckles, and there’s an oddness to it she can’t interpret. “Baron Vengeous is long dead, and I say that with no small amount of relief and satisfaction. The other General is Lord Vile… and he’s been missing for hundreds of years. If he hasn’t turned up now, I doubt he ever will.”

 “Wow,” Stephanie says, lip curling. “They really go balls to the wall with these names, huh. Lord  _ Vile _ ? That’s a little…”

 “Pretentious? Intimidating?” Skulduggery suggests. 

 “Yeah.’

 “To be fair,” Skulduggery says. “He certainly earned the name. Lord Vile was one of the most powerful Necromancers in recorded history as well as brutal, notorious mass murder. He murdered thousands upon thousands of innocents on and off the battlefield.”

 “You sure he isn’t coming back?” Stephanie says, shivering. 

 “I certainly hope not,” Skulduggery murmurs.

 “Wait, but you were a general or something too, right? Why didn’t anyone listen to you when you tried to warn them about Serpine?”   
 “Perhaps if someone like Ghastly approached them,” Skulduggery says. “Perhaps they would have listened.”

 “What’s wrong with you being the one to come forward?” Stephanie says, and grins despite herself. “You’re the  _ Skeleton Detective _ .”

 She expects a witty retort, but Skulduggery doesn’t answer, and remains silent the rest of the way back.

 

-

 

The meeting room with actual, fresh daylight, is missing a few familiar faces; it’s just Erskine and Corrival eating their lunch quietly. Corrival is reading a book; Erskine is staring into the distance. 

 “Corrival,” Skulduggery says as they enter. “Might I have a word before we go to the new refugees?”

 “Of course, my boy,” Corrival says, popping the last of his sandwich into his mouth and standing up. 

 “Erskine will take you back to your room,” Skulduggery tells her. “Have some lunch while you’re here, and I’ll bring you some dinner later tonight.”

 “Alright,” Stephanie says, and watches them leave the room. She takes a plate and loads it up with fresh sandwiches, full of ham and cheese and tomato. It’s a delight, and it’s only once she’s halfway through her second that she remembers Erskine is in the room with her.

  Her eyes drop to his knuckles. Kenspeckle must have healed them, because they’re normal, and also not covered in that boy’s blood.

_ Two hundred years old _ , she reminds herself.  _ Also, he was trying to kill you. And was super creepy. _

__ Perhaps Erskine notices how she’s staring at his hands, because he looks up at her.

 “How’s the caves treating you?” he asks, friendly, warm. But unlike Ghastly’s warmth, something about this seems… wrong.

 “They’re alright,” she says cautiously. “Cold, damp. The whole cave shebang.”

 “That’s the caves alright,” he nods. 

 “So,” she says.

 “So,” he says. They stare at each other. He has, she realises, extraordinary golden eyes, a yellow that reminds her of a hawk.

 “I hope everything with the vamp hasn’t upset you,” he says eventually. “I can’t imagine that’s something you had to see back in Haggard.”

 She shrugs. “It helps he nearly bit my face off.”

 Erskine laughs. “I suppose that’s true.” He takes another sandwich. “Skulduggery and you seem to get along quite well,” he muses.

 Stephanie barks a laugh. “That’s a strong way of putting it.”

 Erskine nods. “He can be a little insufferable, can’t he?”

 “Well, that’s a  _ gentle _ way of putting it,” Stephanie mutters, but finds herself remembering his jaw in her hands, his utter stillness, how his voice is rich and dark.

 “He’s a good man,” Erskine says. “He’s just... suffered a lot.”

 There it is again, men making excuses for their assholery.

  “And us mortals haven’t?” she says defensively.  Erskine holds up his hands.

  “That came out wrong,” he smiles, and that smile irks her but she tries to be polite, and takes a bite of her sandwich instead. “Absolutely, you mortals have suffered. I’m just saying…”

 She feels uncomfortable, the way he leans in, but before she can tell him to keep this secret that isn’t his to tell, he says:

 “He wasn’t always this angry.”

 And that’s a strange thing to think, to imagine a Skulduggery who isn’t so barbed, whose voice could be full of something rather than wit or anger, and Erskine keeps talking.

 “I knew him before he was a skeleton. He was happy. He was in love, he had a beautiful wife, a wonderful child.”

 “What did he look like?” she asks despite herself, because how is that not the question she can want to know? What face really belongs on that skull?   
 “You didn’t hear it from me,” Erskine tells her with a smile, “But he was the living embodiment of the Irish stereotype. He had the longest nose, and all these freckles. And you could see his mop of red hair a mile away in the pitch of night. We used to joke he was like a walking lantern.”

She tries to imagine Skulduggery with this face. She can’t.

“And then the war started, of course. Skulduggery volunteered himself and quickly moved up the ranks, and before long he was giving orders, not taking them. He was one of the smartest, strongest leaders I had ever known.”

 “What happened?” she asks, despite herself, leaning across the table, even as she thinks this isn’t for her to hear.

 “Serpine managed to take him prisoner,” Erskine says. “He tortured Skulduggery for weeks, and Skulduggery didn’t give him even a single word to show for it. I think Serpine must have gotten desperate, because he did something most people would never consider, something wildly against our code of honor. He kidnapped Skulduggery’s family.”

 She feels sick to her stomach, like when Skulduggery showed her those deep circles struck into his sockets.

 “Serpine is especially cunning. He knew how to set a good trap. It needs one important quality; misdirection. And after years on the battlefield, Serpine knew Skulduggery like an old friend, and he knew that if he murdered Skulduggery’s wife and child right in front of him, the poor man would never stop to think the handle of the dagger he reached for was dipped in poison.”

 Stephanie stares at him, and Erskine looks out at the strip of sky through the rock wall, hands interlaced. 

 “It took him a few days to finally kill Skulduggery. Skulduggery died hating him, and when he came back, that hatred came back with him. He’s a poor, dark, twisted thing, and believe me when I say, revenge is something on the forefront of his mind, and he’ll do whatever he needs to get it.”

 She shrugs, uncomfortable. “Ah, he seems alright.”

 Erskine gives her a sad little smile. “He’s a good man, Valkyrie. But be careful. Good men do terrible things.”

 

-

 

She reads the texts without absorbing it, unable to concentrate; unable to think.

 Skulduggery was murdered by Serpine.  _ Gordon  _ was murdered by Serpine

 These sentences lurs in her mind, like a snake in the grass. She doesn’t even know how to feel about it, just that it’s so utterly unexpected, so strange to consider, that magic was only one degree away from her at all times.

 But then, looking back, is she really so surprised? As a child, Gordon was just a cool, quirky adult, but now she can see that he was a little odd, had strange, dark ideas, all those secret passageways in the house. And a  _ cave _ system? Christ, she thinks, what if she had been dragged into all of this by proxy, one day?

_ Enough _ , she tells herself, trying to clear her head. She rubs her eyes and turns her thoughts back to the text.

 There’s a recurring symbol on the Gate, in all the different little clusters. She can’t figure whether it’s a hub symbol, or a chain, or a connector. This grammar is old, and this symbol is older. 

 It’s standard iteration is an upturned little sliver with a half circle carved beneath it of it, like a fruit resting on a plate flipped upside down, but she’s seeing it both carved alone, within itself, within other symbols. And she can’t find it  _ anywhere _ in her text, which she doesn’t know what to think about; this text is meant to have every symbol in the last thousand years.

 She adds the symbol to her list of things she wish China was here to ask about. And then adds, a second after,  _ did China and Gordon date? _

__ God, now  _ that’s _ a thought. She knows her uncle had numerous torrid affairs with numerous beautiful women, and was skilled at punching above his weight. But if Gordon was a middleweight, then China is a  _ heavy _ weight, and  _ great _ , now she’s thinking about Gordon and  _ China _ , China and  _ Gordon,  _ in bed,  _ eurgh- _

__ She looks up very gratefully when the wall rumbles open and then Skulduggery walks in. Not that she’s expecting anyone else, obviously, but now all she can think about is how Serpine, y’know, murdered his family in front of him.

 “I brought you pizza,” he says, facade flowing away, and her eyes widen.

 “ _ Pizza _ ?”

 “Yes,” he says. “I feel like I said that loudly and clearly, what did you not understand?”

 She springs up, knocking her book to the ground, and goes over to him. Indeed, the smell of garlic and tomatoes and oh my  _ God _ , is that  _ cheese _ -

 He holds the plate up out of reach. “I’m only giving you the pizza if you’ve actually done some work.”

 Stephanie briefly fantasises about using his skull for a football, then takes out her list of notes. He sits down on the desk chair, still holding the plate, and listens to her. 

 “So, I’ve found some recurring structures,” she says. “These symbols, here, here and here-” she points them out on their corresponding points on the plan. “They’re being used as anchors to direct the flow of magic. That’s pretty common, for structures this big. But the symbols themselves isn’t anchoring the Gate; they’re symbols for earth, for ground, for air. Which is weird, because anchors are meant to represent the object itself.”

 She waits for Skulduggery to say something. He doesn’t. She looks at the pizza, which doesn’t say anything either.

 “Then there’s a few little clusters, there and there, which are standard transportation clusters. You see them all the time on the wheels for the self-moving trams. But they’re inside bigger clusters, and I’m still trying to figure out what they mean in relation to the other symbols inside the bigger frameworks.”

 She pauses, salivating. The smell of pizza is becoming unbearable.

 “One more note,” Skulduggery says. “Then you can have your pizza.”

 She glares at him, and then shows him the pad.

 “Did China and Gordon date,” he reads. She colours.

 “No, the little upside down fruit bowl. Have you seen it before?”

 Skulduggery hands her the pizza in exchange for the pad, and he sits there, thinking, while Stephanie brings the pizza to her mouth like she’s about to receive a blessing from Christ himself. 

 Her heart hasn’t raced like this since she and Barb kissed when she was twenty, she thinks idly, and then the pizza is on her tongue. 

 Stephanie moans. Loudly. She can’t help it, and even as Skulduggery is looking at her in what she can only assume is distaste, all she can think about is the soft, stringy cheese and the perfect blend of the tomato sauce, and oh, the garlic, not to mention the perfectly cooked  _ base _ . It’s been over ten years since she had pizza but now she’s ten again, sitting in her room and eating pizza on her comfortable bed surrounded by her books and listening to music while her mum fills her in on her day-

 Quite abruptly, she realises she’s teary, and is horrified, quickly wiping her tears away. Skulduggery doesn’t seem to have noticed, thank  _ God _ . He wouldn’t let her live it down.

 “I  _ have  _ seen this,” Skulduggery says slowly. “It’s a very old symbol. I wasn’t aware it was a sigil, too.”

 “Well, what is it?”

 “A Necromancer symbol,” he says. “It’s adapted from Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The original referred to the waxing moon, but the Necromanctic adaptation refers to things that can’t be seen. The little crescent-”

 “Fruitbowl,” Stephanie correct him.

 “-Represents the moon, and the semi circle represents the sun. A solar eclipse. ”

 Stephanie looks up from her pizza long enough to say, “Things that can’t be seen? What, like something invisible?”   
 Skulduggery shakes his head, his hand on his chin. “No. Things… intangible. But I’d need to confirm that. Which could be a problem.”

 “Why?”

 He hesitates. “Well, the Necromancer’s Temple is the only place where you can find book old enough on Necromantic symbols. Except as far as I know, it’s under Serpine’s control.”

 Stephanie shrugs, chewing on cheese. “Sounds like we need to break in.”

 Skulduggery gives her a look, that without a face, she doesn’t know how to interpret. But he tilts his head and his voice is warm and she suspect he might be smiling a little.  

 “We?” he asks.

 She chokes on her pizza. “You.  _ You _ -need to break in,” she corrected around a mouthful of delicious pizza.

 “But what if there are sigil alarms and traps? Which there will be? What if I get caught?”

 “Aren’t you meant to be a detective-slash-soldier?” she mutters. “Why do you need my help? I’m just a mortal. I’ll get myself killed or something.”

 “You’re not just a mortal,” Skulduggery says. “You’re an Edgley.”

 She grins despite herself. “So you would have taken Gordon with you? Is that what you’re saying?”

 “Absolutely not. Gordon would have decoded the Gate already.”

 “Gordon couldn’t decode his way out of a cardboard box,” Stephanie laughs. 

 “What are you so concerned about? You’d be safe with me,” he says, and the surprising earnestness of it shocks her, even as Erskine’s words whisper in her head. “Well,” he amends. “Not safe, exactly. But you’d have a good time, at least. Maybe even get to punch someone.”

“I’m not trained to fight,” she says. “And I’m probably on their wanted list, right?”

Skulduggery passes back the list. “Well, that’s why I’ll be introducing you to Tanith Low. And as for you being on Serpine’s wanted list, I doubt it. You’re one mortal among many, and as far as I saw on my travels, all his attention is diverted to stop the Arbiters saving anyone else, rather than trying to get anyone back.

 “Besides,” he says. “You fought off a vampire. That’s something most sorcerers have never done.”

 Those words, in that voice? She can’t deny it, really, that it makes her feel pretty good.

 “Also, I got you a fresh pizza, so.” He shrugs. “You kind of owe me.”

 “I saved your life!”

 “I saved yours first. Now the ball is back in  _ your _ court.”

 “Well, I’m serving it right back at you, Pleasant,” she laughs. 

 “In all seriousness though, I’d be glad to have you with me. Ghastly is caught up helping the refugees; Erskine is busy running security; Saracen is busy with Anton making refugee runs; Dexter is useless, and Corrival is, well,  _ old _ . And also the leader of this entire operation.”

 “Look,” she says. “This isn’t gonna happen tomorrow right?”

 “Definitely not,” he says. “I’ll need a few weeks to plan this and make sure the rest of the Dead Men can hold down the fort.”

 “So, why don’t we see how I go with Tanith?”

 Skulduggery takes a moment. “Painfully reasonable. Shake on it?”

 They do. His handshake is firm, and his bones are jut into her palm, but she doesn’t mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO MIDNIGHT IS OUT NOW HUH!!!!! what a fuckin ride that was.
> 
> To set some things straight; Darquesse and Abyssinia do not appear in this fic/are irrelevant respectively. This is gonna be a nice and tidy and straightforward AU and also I can only juggle so many things.
> 
> But if you DO want some shameless Valdug porn with a little plot, I've just put up a post Midnight fic that you should probably not read in public.
> 
> Thanks as always for the wonderful comments!!! I'm so happy this fic has been so well recieved! See you soon!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephanie learns a little more. Fletcher doesn't shut up. Skulduggery doesn't listen to Finbar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thanks to the wonderful mooncactus who betas this passion project. and thank you for all the support and love i've received!

The day after Skulduggery brings her that glorious pizza, he leads her through the tunnels in a direction they haven’t gone before; upwards, towards the peak of the mountain.

 “Up here is where we train, store our weapons, and so on,” Skulduggery tells her. Today his facade is a handsome man with red hair, and she wonders, briefly, if his original face looks anything like it. “And after you finish with Tanith today,” he says hesitantly, “I’m going to give you some lessons in magic.”

 She stops in the hallway and looks at him, crossing her arms. “What?”

 “I spoke with Corrival, and he agrees with me. It’s a necessary evil. Think of it like this,” Skulduggery says. “Right now, your knowledge is purely academic-”

 Stephanie levels a look at him. “I know how magic works.”

 “No,” he says. “You know what China could teach you without placing you in a dangerous position.”

 “But you don’t know how to Carve,” she points out. “What would you teach me?”

 He looks bemused. And kind of cute, until she remembers the annoying skeleton beneath it. “You  _ are  _ a Carver,” he says. “I don’t need to teach you that. I’d argue you’re extremely good at it. Carving, much like anything involving a language after a point, is just practice and self study. But you’re like someone putting together Ikea furniture with those little picture manuals. You know a screw goes here, but you don’t know  _ why _ .”

 “Maybe I don’t  _ want _ to be a sorcerer,” she says. 

 Skulduggery gives her that look, and there’s that rough annoyance in his tone she doesn’t hear so much lately. “You’ve been using very low level magic to contribute to the Empire’s cause for years,” he tells her. “Why not use high level magic to fight it?”

 Well, she can’t find anything good to say to that, the discomfit of the truth of it rankling. He turns around and they walk in silence for the rest of the way.  

 The room Tanith is waiting for her in reminds Stephanie of a gym; there are crude weights, a punching bag suspended from the ceiling. A woman is sitting on a thick, worn yoga mat, stretching. Stephanie is agape; every muscle in her body is chiselled, defined, shoulders broad and legs thick. Her hair is a deep honey blond, cropped just beneath her jaw, and she looks like she belongs in a boxing ring. 

 Seeing them walk in, she climbs to her feet, brushes the thick hair from her face. She has a warm smile and she extends her hand. Stephanie is briefly mesmerised by how her muscles ripple beneath her brown skin. Holy  _ shit _ , she thinks.  _ I want to look like this _ .

 “Hey, I’m Tanith,” she says, in a strong English accent. “You must be the infamous Valkyrie that Skulduggery can’t stop talking about.”

 “Uh,” Stephanie says, unsure how to take that; looking at Skulduggery, she sees he is steadfastly looking anywhere else but at her. Tanith has a smug sort of look on her face. “It’s a pleasure?” Stephanie says, tipping into a question, shakes her hand.

 “I heard you took out a vampire,” Tanith grins. 

 “Only because Skulduggery was having a nap,” Stephanie says, and Tanith laughs.

 “Tanith used to work for the English Sanctuary, back when there  _ was _ one,” Skulduggery tells her. “She’s highly recommended.”

 “Aw,” Tanith grins.

 “Not to mention, strong,” Skulduggery adds. 

 “Go on,” Tanith laughs. 

 “And very mean, so do what she says,” he finishes, and leaves before Tanith can even frown.

 “Mean?” Stephanie asks.

 “I may have beat him in a wrestling match a couple of years ago,” Tanith says. “And smack talked him. Just a little.”

 Stephanie laughs. 

 “Alright, take off your jacket. We’re going to do some stretches, and then I’m going to see what you can do.”

 “I can’t do very much,” Stephanie warns her, laying her jacket down on a nearby bench. She joins Tanith on the mat. Something about Tanith strips away her usual self confidence; here is a woman that could, and probably would if she needed to, kill her.

 “Valkyrie,” Tanith tells her, “You disabled a vampire,  _ and _ you impressed the infamously unimpressed Skulduggery Pleasant. Don’t sell yourself short. Now follow me.”

 She leads Stephanie through a series of stretches that leave Stephanie sweating, her muscles burning in feeble protest. She’s always considered herself relatively fit and able, and is starting to get the feeling that this is not the case.

 Once they’re done, Tanith has her do some basic fitness tests that have her thinking of her days at school; sprints, push ups, checking how much weight she can comfortably lift. Soon her shirt sleeves are rolled up, her top button undone, her hair pulled back.

  It’s an hour of torture, there’s no other way to put it. Tanith sits her down when her thighs finally give out during their seventh circuit of squats.

 “Alright,” Tanith tells her, calmly passing her a bottle of water. “Now you’re warmed up, and ready to go.”

 “What,” Stephanie gasps, choking on the water. “That was the  _ warm _ up?”

 Tanith cracks a grin. “Nah, I’m just joking, we’re almost done. You did pretty good. I get the feeling you were a swimmer as a kid, right?”

 “Yeah.” 

 “It shows. You’ve got good strong shoulders and legs. Did you do any self defence when you were younger?”

 “Like… karate? No.”

 “That’s fine,” Tanith assures her. “I’m not going to be teaching you anything like that. Just seeing what I’m working with.”

 Tanith stands up, pulls Stephanie back up. They do some jogging for active recovery, and once Stephanie can walk without wanting to die, they get to work.

 “I want you to try and hit me,” Tanith tells her, standing there like the goddess of war or fighting or whatever. Stephanie holds her hands up, and watches her. This is a trap, right? She’s going to swing a punch, and then Tanith is going to break her arm.

 Well, in for a penny, she thinks, and steps forward and tries to punch her. Tanith steps out of the way, of course.

 “Nice try,” she says. Stephanie grimaces. “Keep going until I tell you to stop.”

 It doesn’t take very long; her arms are burning from push ups, and it gets to a point where she can’t even lift them. Stephanie bends over, breathing hard, feeling extremely embarrassed and a little defensive, and Tanith puts her hand on her back.

 “Hey, that was really good-”

 Stephanie, who has seen enough movies and read enough books, elbows Tanith in the stomach. Well, tries to; Tanith skips out of the way, and then laughs delightedly.

 “ _ That _ was excellent,” Tanith crows. “Exactly what I would have done.”

 “I didn’t even hit you,” Stephanie protests, trying to stretch her arms out. “Not even once!”

 “I’ve been training for eighty years,” Tanith grins. “Don’t feel too bad about it. A few weeks of this and you’ll be surprised at yourself.”

 “Please tell me we’re done,” Stephanie begs. 

 “Yeah, we’re done,” Tanith says. She leads Stephanie through some cool down stretches, and then she goes over a leather satchel near the bench, and pulls out a little bag. “Have a shower tonight, and wash yourself with this. It’ll help your muscles heal up so we can do some proper training tomorrow.”

 “She’s much nicer to you than she is to me,” Skulduggery’s voice says, and she turns to where he stands in the entrance, that handsome face still on. He leans on the cave wall, cool and put together, and she’s very conscious of how incredibly sweaty she is, hair sticking to her face and sweat on her upper lip. 

 “Well,” Stephanie says. “I wasn’t stupid enough to challenge her to a wrestling match.”

 His face sours, and Stephanie laughs.

 “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” Tanith says. “Same time?”

 “Sounds good,” Stephanie says. She slips her jacket back on, and Skulduggery leads her out.  

 “Are you ready to learn some magic?” He asks her.

 “I’m ready for a nap,” she mutters. “Christ alive. She didn’t even get around to  _ teaching _ me anything.”

 “And yet, you look so  _ incredibly  _ sweaty.”

 She grunts. 

 “If it helps,” he says. “Your skin is a lovely shade of red. Very becoming.”

 “You’re lucky I can’t lift my arms right now,” Stephanie says, and he laughs.

 

-

 

They end up in a small room a little further up from the faux-gym, with daylight streaming in through fissures in the wall and a soft breeze. It’s very nice, and she slumps gratefully into one of the chairs sat inside. Skulduggery sits in one nearby, as still as a statue. She half expects him to pull out textbooks and a blackboard.

 “So,” he says. “Magic.”

 “Magic,” she agrees.

 “So what do you know outside of Carving?”

 She shrugs. “I mean, the basics. Elementals… Adepts… I know you have to pick one, right?”

 “In most cases, yes. But you don’t actively choose. Most sorcerers dabble, and then they experience the Surge, which is an excruciating process wherein your body locks into the Source in a very specific way.” he looks at her, perhaps seeing how she looks a little concerned at his casual use of the word  _ excruciating _ . 

 “Y’know, I’m suddenly a lot less interested in dabbling, if that were even possible,” she says dryly, crossing her arms.

 “Quite reasonable,” he nods. “But unfortunately, irrelevant. Sp, how does magic make you feel?”

 “Oh, my God,” she groans. “What is this, a hippy commune?”

 He pushes. “When you touch Carved sigils, what does it feel like?”   
 “It depends,” she shrugs reluctantly. “Depends on the sigil. I feel like,” she adds, “You’re kinda just freeballing here. Are you gonna teach me to throw fire, or what?”   
 “Actually,” he says. “What I’m going to teach you to do is open your cave wall.”

 “That… would be appreciated.”

 He takes out, of all things, a little bag of dirt, and tosses it in her lap.

 “Uh.”

 “That’s what you’re going to practise on,” he tells her. “Every spare moment, you’re going to move the dirt in that hand. And then once you can do that? Pebbles. And then, rocks, and then, your wall.”

 “But what about all that stuff you were talking about? Fundamental magics?”

 “Pretend this is the Karate Kid. Time to wax a few cars, Daniel-san.”

 Stephanie looks at him. He looks at her, and relents.

 “To be honest, usually you would spends years learning this. But we don’t have that amount of time, and I’m an impatient man.”

 He scooches his chair over to hers; their knees just brush. He opens the little dirt bag, and spools the dirt into his gloved palm.

 “Now,” he says. “To be fair, this is a pretty recently discovered branch of Elemental magic, so... “

 “So you have no idea what you’re doing?”

 He looks up at her, insulted. “I’ve been using magic for over four hundred years.”

 She shrugs. “Well, go on.”

 “You can’t think of this as dirt,” he tells her. “Think of it as broken down rock. The only difference is it’s small, and fine. And easy to move.”

 He makes a motion with his finger, a gentle swirl, and the dirt slowly begins to move, following his motion. 

 “What I’m actually doing,” Skulduggery says, “Is moving the dirt. Not the air. I’m channelling my magic into my finger, and reaching out until the object of my desire- in this case, these little bits of rock- responds.”

 He tips the dirt into her hands, brushes the rest from his gloves.

 “You try.”

 She looks at him. “I can’t even lift my arms.” 

 “I believe in you,” he says, with surprising earnestness, so she hoists her arms onto her lap and tries doing the same thing. 

 Nothing happens, of course, but he doesn’t seem too fussed.

 “What if I just  _ can’t  _ do magic?” she says, frustrated, five minutes of finger swirling later.

 He shakes his head. “If you can Carve, you can do magic.”

 “Well, I’m not doing any magic  _ now _ ,” she argues. “I thought you were going to talk to me about magical theory, or something. Maybe give me a pop quiz. A stirring speech.”

 “The sooner you recognise the feel of magic,” he tells her, “The easier it will come to you.”

 “But  _ how _ do I feel it?”   
 He sighs, and takes off his jacket all of a sudden. She stares at him. Is she about to get a skeleton strip show? Does he even  _ have _ skin under there?

 “What?” he says, rolling up his right sleeve.  

 “Nothing,” she says hastily.

 “You’re very strange sometimes,” he says, holding his arm out to her. He presses down on the crook of his elbow, and a black mark fades into view.

 A sigil is Carved into him, one she’s seen only once, when she Carved on an odd little ball that had two hemispheres.  A  _ manaia _ , a sigil of Maori origin, and she remembers it functions as a connective, passive sigil, one that can’t be turned off.

 “We use this sigil to keep track of anyone out in the field. It matches up, much like a GPS system, to a crystal tablet we have set up in the main planning room. If one of us doesn’t check in, this symbol tracks them.”

 She can see it’s China’s work; the sharpness of it, every degree perfectly calculated. 

 “Touch it, and tell me what you feel,” he says, and she hesitantly reaches out, presses a single finger to it. He doesn’t have a pulse, of course, but his skin feels surprisingly real. She closes her eyes as the sigil warms to her touch.

 It feels, she thinks, like someone is watching her. Like someone she trusts is keeping an eye on her, ready to take her home from a storm.

 She opens her eyes. He’s watching her, and while she knows that feeling isn’t from  _ his  _ eyes, her heart pounds just a tiny bit.

 “What did you feel?”

 Stephanie shrugs nonchalantly. “Like someone was watching me.”

 “Where? Where did you feel it?”

 She hesitates, and he offers his arm once more. She places her finger back on the mark.

 That feeling again, and she tries to focus a little more on the source of the feeling, rather than the feeling itself. There, in her diaphragm, a tightness, a hitch, as if that’s where those invisible eyes are focusing. 

 “There you go,” Skulduggery says, a smile in his voice, and she opens her eyes to see not only that sigil, but several more, fading up into his skin. All of them wildly different, sigils of speed, of lightness, of heaviness; her magic must be spreading down his skin.

 She kind of wants to touch them all. She takes her hand back, and looks up to see a messy curl falling from behind his ears, over those eyes. He’s looking at her in satisfaction, and she swallows, sits back in the chair.

 “You have a  _ lot _ of tattoos,” she says. 

 He shrugs. “I’ve been around for a while,” is all he’ll say, rolling his sleeve down and re-buttoning the cuff.

 “Oh,” she says, realising. “Your facade. It’s sigil based, isn’t it?” 

“Ah, you continue to impress me,” he says. “Yes. China designed it herself.”

“Where is it?”

“Two of them. On my collarbones.”

 She wonders, how those sigils would feel to touch, and her mouth asks the question before she can stop herself.

 “Can I see them?”

 He falters, and are his ears turning red?

 “Sorry,” she says quickly, “You don’t have to-”

 “It’s fine,” Skulduggery assures her. His voice is rough, but not with annoyance, something she doesn’t recognise, and he clears the throat he doesn’t have.

 She watches him unbutton the top two buttons on that lovely, lovely shirt, an expanse of pale skin, and he pulls his lapels wide enough that she can see them.

 Unlike the other sigils, these are there without her touch; an unusual, delicate cluster. Her embarrassment fades, and she leans in for a better look, wishing she had her magnifying lenses. She can see hundreds of little signs, carved in the microscale, a level of work she’s only seen in the Gate. She can see sigils for people, for change, for eyes and ears and knees and toes, and it suddenly occurs to her that China must truly be a master in every sense of the word to have Carved this, and for it to have  _ worked _ .

 She reaches out, then looks up at Skulduggery, who watches her, unwavering; he says nothing, tilting his head, and she lays her hand sideways over both sigils. Unlike the sigil on his arm, the sheer complexity of the sensation overwhelms her; her eyes slam shut.

 It’s not something she can categorise, it’s the softness of fingertips and the shape of a nose and the color of eyes, every hue of skin she could ever imagine, white and brown and tan and black and there’s the feeling of yielding too, of firm and hard and cool and warm. 

A gloved hand over hers, lifting it gently from the sigil; she opens her eyes and Skulduggery is there, looking at her in concern.

 “I’m fine,” Stephanie manages. “Those sigils were just… that was very strong magic.”

 “Are you okay?”

 “I’m fine,” she says again, and realises he’s still holding her hand; perhaps at the same time he does;, as she reclaims it at the same time he lets go. They look down at their touching knees. Skulduggery shuffles away a little bit. She smiles at him awkwardly.

 “Why don’t you try the dirt, now?” He suggests, buttoning his shirt back up. She watches as that pale skin disappears, and then looks at the dirt bag.

 “Fine,” she sighs, taking out a handful. It sits in her hand, dry and coarse. Not soil. Little tiny bits of rock. God, this is stupid. She looks at her little hand of dirt and holds out her finger, and feels super silly. But he just watches her with that same unwavering  _ something _ , so she closes her eyes and tries to find that little knot in the center of her, waving her finger about, trying to feel like she did when her skin touched his.

 She opens her eyes, and squints at the dirt, and nothing happens, of course.

 “Nothing,” she mutters.    
 “Not quite nothing,” Skulduggery says. “One more try, and then we’re done. How does that sound?”

 “Alright,” she sighs, and looks back at her stupid little dirt pile. She doesn’t even have to move all of it, she thinks. Just one little granule. She picks out a dark clod of it that stands out amongst the lighter browns, and moves her fingers once more, searching for that source in her, pretending she’s drawing a sigil with her finger, like she’s seen China do countless times.

 That single clod shifts, and then it’s dragging after her finger, and she can feel it, like she’s pulling something through water, a string all the way up from her finger to her chest.

 Stephanie makes a sound of mingled surprise and unexpected joy, and looks up. Skulduggery, who is smiling at her, lips tipping at the corners, puts his jacket on.

 “Magic,” he tells her.

 

-

 

 She hangs out her clothes to air dry, and takes out the little bag Tanith gave her; it contains a little tub of what looks like soapy mud, and as she rubs it over her, she can actually feel the muscle pain easing.

Nice.

After the shower, clad in a bathrobe, she takes out the notes she’s made on the Gate so far, and gets to work, writing down patterns and unfamiliar sigils, cross checking and researching. She doesn’t get very far, though. She’s just sore, and a little sleepy, so she crawls into bed and has a nap.

 

-

 

She dreams of her father. He’s sitting at her desk in her little cave room, and she yawns, says hello, and he turns his face to hers and her mothers necklace is wrapped around his neck, and Marr is pulling at it like a leash.

_ Stupid girl _ , Marr tells her, and Stephanie, roaring, stabs her in the neck, and then she’s alone, in a dark, empty place, the shadows swallowing her words like water swallows land.

 

-

 

She wakes up when she hears the wall crumbling, disoriented and anxious and wrapped in her bathrobe.

 “My apologies,” Skulduggery says. “I knocked on the wall several times, and you didn’t answer. I didn’t think you would be asleep.”

  She yawns, goes to the wall and looks at the plate her proffers to her; roast vegetables and chicken.

 “I’ll leave you to it, shall I?” he says, passing her the plate through the little wall hole he’s looking through, and she blinks.

 “You aren’t going to stick around while I eat?” Stephanie asks, surprised.

 “I was under the impression I was a bother,” he says, but there’s no maliciousness in it.

 “Who said that?”   
 “You.”

 “Well,” she says. “People can be more than one thing.”

 “How flattering,” he says, and sits on the chair as she eats some roast vegetables in bed. Something in her calms, and that dream settles, dissipates, as she watches him shuffle through her notes. This is when it begins in earnest, she will realise later; this is the moment Skulduggery Pleasant becomes more than what he strictly should be.

 

-

 

Despite the special wash Tanith gave her, she’s still stiff and unable to move properly the next day.

 “You look like a zombie,” Tanith laughs, seeing Stephanie’s shuffling gait, and Stephanie glares at her. “Let’s go for a nice long walk. It’ll help.”

 “And then I can go have a nap?” Stephanie says hopefully.

 “No, then I beat you up,” Tanith corrects her. But she walks slowly, and leads Stephanie through the tunnels, down towards the food sector. 

 “Are we going to get a snack?”

 “No,” Tanith says. “Ghastly made some clothes for you.”

 “But I  _ have  _ clothes,” Stephanie protests. “Also, I never want to take this suit off.”

 “Don’t you want pajamas? T-shirts?” Tanith grins. She watches Stephanie totter down a steeper part of the tunnel.

 “It  _ would _ be nice to have pajamas,” Stephanie concedes in between pained grimaces.

 “Besides,” Tanith contines, “I need to pick up some clothes myself. Might as well make it a round trip.”

 “Pajamas?”

 “No. I sleep in the nude.”

 Stephanie laughs. “I kind of imagined you having pajama leathers, or something. What if someone attacks in the night?”

 “Picture this,” Tanith says, very seriously. “You’re an idiot. You break into my cave, thinking you’ll take me by surprise. But Tanith Low? I could never be taken by surprise. That’s when I pull my sword out of my pillow, and you’re faced with me, stark naked, furious, and  _ gorgeous _ .”

 Stephanie is laughing, but Tanith doesn’t pause.

 “You’re distracted by both my enormous muscles and my lack of clothing, and I say,  _ come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough _ , which you are, because look at me, I mean, it’s inevitable, and with all blood between your legs you only bleed a bit when I cut your head off. Foolproof.”

 “I get the sense this is an experience you’ve lived through.”

 “Yes,” Tanith nods. “But the important thing is that I was the  _ only _ one who did.” She pauses, and adds, “Besides, have you ever tried getting brain buts out of a fleece blend? I do  _ not _ recommend it.”

 

-

 

During the day, Ghastly has crude windows shaped in the rock wall. The scent of food and the noise of people drifts in, and it’s feels safe and homely in that shop, like a simpler time.

 Ghastly is delighted to see them (more so to see Tanith, Stephanie suspects) and immediately goes into the back to get the clothes he’s made for both of them. Tanith fiddles with the fabric bolts, holding swatches up to her chest while Stephanie tries to recover from the long walk down.

 “Does this make my ass look big?” she says, turning to Stephanie, who laughs.

   “Looks good to me,” a male voice says, and they both turn to look at Fletcher, who is leaning in the crude stone doorway, looking as greasy and tired as when Stephanie saw him last.

 Tanith raises her brow. She gives him a look up and down and says devastatingly, “What are you, twelve years old?”

 Fletcher looks extraordinarily embarrassed, and she turns back to Val as if he isn’t even there. “Anyway, once we get back, we can run through some proper stances-”

 “I just meant-” Fletcher says, cutting across her, and Stephanie bristles. 

 “Nobody  _ cares _ .”

 Fletcher glares at her. Ghastly comes back in, a huge bag under each arm, and falters at the scowl on Stephanie’s face 

 “Oh, hey Fletcher,” he says. “Is everything... okay?”

 “I was just passing by,” Fletcher mutters, with a doleful glance at Stephanie. “Thought I’d say hi.”  

 “It’s good to see you out and about,” Ghastly smiles, clearly a little confused. He passes both the bags  to Tanith, who graciously decides to save Stephanie’s arms the long trip.

 “Now there are some different shirts to go with your suit,” he tells Stephanie. “And some general everyday stuff, t-shirts and underclothes and socks.”

 “Thanks, Ghastly.”

 “And I repaired your cuirass and spaulders,” Ghastly says to Tanith, and adds, a little shyly, “And I thought some greaves would go well with them. Free of charge, of course.”

 “Bless,” Tanith says. “I’ll have to take you out for dinner or something.”

 Ghastly clears his throat, a little smile on his face.

-

 

The next couple of weeks run along these lines: 

 Stephanie wakes up, pulls her stiff, sore body out of bed. She tries to open her cave wall, even though she knows there’s no way she can. Skulduggery, taking pity on her, opens it, brings her breakfast, and then leaves her to slave over the plans.

 Around lunchtime, he comes back with food, opens the wall when she fails  _ again _ so she can go meet Tanith, and then after, helps her practice moving the dirt cupped in her hands like a secret. The bag of dirt becomes a constant, always on her person, and soon she’s lying on the bed, reading through her books, a finger tipped in the air and dirt dragging after it.

 Their little tradition begins on the fifth day. At this point, this nonstop study and exercise is invigorating, but still overwhelming, a habit she hasn’t yet formed calluses for. Skulduggery and her sit in that room dappled with sunlight, and he says, “Show me.”

 Stephanie, who is starting to become as fond as this little dirt bag as some people would be a pet, is taking it out and fumbles it, arms sore from her session with Tanith, and even as the dirt falls she is automatically reaching for it.

 It stops, mid air, and Skulduggery’s facade breaks into a smile. She stands there, not wanting to move for fear she’ll drop it.

 “Aren’t you going to put it back?” he says. Stephanie looks at him, and has the startling realisation that his smiles are the same on every face. And then she carefully takes out the little bag and like she’s conducting a very slow, very  quiet song, gestures towards the bag.

 It’s a strange feeling, that string from her palm rather than her finger, and the dirt moves clumsy but most of it makes it back inside. She looks up at him, beaming, just in time for Skulduggery to make a motion with his hand like he’s turned a doorknob. The bag bursts open and dirt goes everywhere, on her hands and clothes and face, and she looks at Skulduggery, who looks as startled as her.

 “I didn’t mean that to be quite so dramatic,” he says. “But if you can move dirt like that, you can should have no trouble cleaning it up.”

 He’s not entirely wrong: she manages it get most of it off her. But some gets stuck in her hairline and won’t budge, and he has to lean in, laughing, as he lifts it out.

 Part celebration and part apology, after she washes herself, he knocks on the cave and pokes his head in and says, “How about fish and chips for dinner tonight?”

 Which is how they come to be sitting by where the river surfaces near the food sector, just on the edge of the twinkling, dimmed-for-night light. She has a little wooden bowl full of steaming hot chips and a filet of fried fish covered in salt and vinegar, and she’s in heaven, like she’s sitting on the pier once more.

 Skulduggery is walking along the little river bank. He’s a lonely figure, she finds herself thinking, almost like even the shadows don’t want to touch him. He bends down and picks something up, brings it over to her.

 “I have a gift for you,” he says. “A congratulatory gift.” He holds his hand out, and unfurls it; a single black stone, not much bigger than her pinkie finger nail, and he places it in her automatically outstretched hand like he’s bestowing a treasure.

 Stephanie peers at it. He looks disproportionately proud to the tiny little thing in her palm, and she says through her mouthful of fish, only half joking, “You call this a gift?”

 “Whatever you were doing with that dirt every day,” he says, “Do with this.”

 Stephanie swallows her food and sucks the salt and vinegar from her fingers. The pebble is as patient as he is, and she tries lifting it; the string breaks, and it jolts in her her palm just once.

 “Start from scratch,” Skulduggery says. “All the way back to dragging it.”

 Stephanie sighs, slips the pebble into the breast pocket of her jacket. “How goes the plans for breaking into the Temple?”

 “Slow,” Skulduggery says, sitting next to her. He rests his elbows on his knees and stares across the river, where the cave melts into darkness. “It’s tricky when our spies can only make weekly reports.”

 “Not all of us can be sneaky skeletons, I guess.” She bites a chip and says, “Is magic like that for you as well?”

 “Like what?” he asks, and she holds a hand over her collarbones. “Ah. Like  _ that _ .” He laces his fingers together. “No. But magic is something I grew up with, like you grew up with VCRs. And it doesn’t help that you’ve had an unusual apprenticeship.” 

 “What  _ does  _ it feel like, then?”   
 “It’s not something I think about. It’s never been something new to me.”

 “Is it always this… much? For beginners?”

 Skulduggery gives her a thoughtful look. “Yes and no. But like I said, you’re an unusual case. You’ve been practicing a very tiny amount of magic for a decade through a very narrow lens, and now it’s opening up. And you’re learning remarkably fast. Which is good,” he says, and there’s that darkness about him. “I need everything I can to bring Serpine down.”

 “Yes,” she says drily. “If you need someone to kick dirt in his face, I’m your woman.”

 “I’ll be holding you to that,” Skulduggery says. “You’d be surprised what a well placed bit of dirt can do. The eyes are the fists of the face, after all.”

 “What?” she says, starting to laugh. “What does- what does that even  _ mean?” _

 Skulduggery starts to say something, and but she’s still laughing and she accidentally tips her fish and chips out of her lap and onto the dust. Stephanie sobers up immediately.

 “That’s karma for you,” Skulduggery says.

 

-

 

Tanith steps to the side as Stephanie brings a right hook around her. Her arms are shaking from half an hour of weights and push ups, and she’s sweating profusely, but she’s having a good time, too. Tanith returns with a jab that is softened by the boxing gloves she wears, but not enough that it stops Stephanie from feeling any pain.

 “Fuck,” Stephanie mutters, and then hastily throws herself back to avoid Tanith’s follow up roundhouse. 

Tanith’s approach, much like Skulduggery’s, is all about the practical. 

 “You’re going to be exhausted, when you get in a fight,” she told Stephanie on the second day. “You’re going to have been running, and you’re going to be exhausted, so those are the conditions I’ll be training you in.”

 “Fun.”

 “Better you know your limits and know them well,” Tanith said, and as much as Stephanie likes Tanith, it’s a little disheartening when they finish their session and Stephanie’s barely able to walk while Tanith looks like she’s been strolling through a park, drinking an iced coffee.

 “You have to focus more on dodging,” Tanith says, lashing out another kick into Stephanie’s side. Stephanie knows she’s pulling these hits, but  _ Christ _ , it still hurts. “Well. You should focus on running, to be honest.”

 “Thanks,” Stephanie mutters, and raises her forearm automatically to block a third kick that’s a feint; Tanith turns it into a low stomp that smashes into her shins, and Stephanie yells, falls to the ground. Her little pebble, forgotten, rolls out in front of her, and she’s struck by an idea through the pain. She huddles over her shin, waiting for Tanith to come over, watching how she walks.

 “Shit,” Tanith says, and sounds like she means it. “I’m sorry. You okay?”

 “It’s fine,” Stephanie says, hiding her face from view, watching Tanith come closer. Years of China forcing her into the habit of examination pays off; as Tanith’s foot comes down on the little pebble, Stephanie grunts and twists her hand and Tanith stumbles as the pebble rolls beneath her boot. Stephanie launches herself upwards and at her, but Tanith simply steps out of the way and Stephanie trips over her outstretched foot; she lands in the dust and groans.

 “You actually kinda had me for a second there,” Tanith says, that wide grin on her face. “I mean, not really. But a little. That was great.”

 “Really?”

 “Yeah!” Tanith says, crouching next to her. “Problem is, now you can’t use it again. I’ll be looking for it.”

 She picks up the pebble and puts it on Stephanie’s stomach. 

 “Am I actually gonna be an asset, do you think?” Stephanie asks her, grimacing at the rocky ceiling. “I mean, am I gonna get myself killed, like.” 

 “You’re a fast learner, you’re smart, and you’re pretty fit. If Skulduggery thinks you’re capable, then you’re capable. He’s been doing this sort of thing much longer than I have.”

 Stephanie thinks about this, thinks about Erskine’s warning. 

 Tanith looks up. “Speak of the devil. Here for a rematch, Skul?”

 “As much as I would love to wipe the floor with you,” Skulduggery says as he comes through the door, “No. I need Valkyrie to come with me.”

 “I’m too busy being dead,” she groans. He stands over her, tall, skinny, and unimpressed.

 “If  _ I’m _ up and about, you have no excuse,” Skulduggery says, but he reaches out and offers his hand, and she takes it; he pulls her up like it’s nothing.

 “Everything alright?” Tanith asks. Skulduggery’s facade is plain today (but not as plain as the face she met him in), and his mouth twists. 

 “The vampire is asking for you,” is all Skulduggery will say, and the good nature drains out of Stephanie like air from a balloon.

-

 

They go straight to that stretch of wall she remembers from what feels like an eternity ago.

 Finbar leans against it, smoking a cigarette and looking exhausted. “Hey, Skul,” he says. “Hey Val.”

 “Are you okay?” Stephanie says. 

 “Naw, I’m fine. Working on psychic blocks for a week is just super tiring. Cassandra’s having a nap right now.”

 “I think you should follow her lead,” Skulduggery says. “You look awful, Finbar. Why are you still here?”

 Finbar flicks his cigarette to the ground, grinds it out with his heel. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you before. You shouldn’t let him see Val.”

 Stephanie frowns. “Why not?”

 Finbar looks at her, and there’s more than exhaustion in his eyes. “Because he’s a sicko.”

 “Oh,” Skulduggery says. “Yes, well, that much was obvious.”

 “Oh,” Finbar says in surprise. 

 “Yes,” Skulduggery says. “He is quite fascinated with Valkyrie. It’s a little disturbing.”

 “So why am I here, then?” she asks, covering her shiver with impatience.

 “Because it’s important to remove any notion of sympathy for him from your mind,” Skulduggery says. “Finbar, I assume you have this on crystal?”

 “Unfortunately,” Finbar mutters, and pulls a single quartz crystal from his pants. He goes to pass it to Skulduggery, who shakes his head. 

 “Give it to Valkyrie.”

 “Dude,” Finbar says. “This isn’t something she wants to see.  _ I _ didn’t want to see it, and I’m a hardened hunk of man meat.”

 “What is it?” Stephanie asks. 

 “It’s his memories,” Skulduggery says. “We’re going to review them. And then I’m going to ask him some questions.”

 Finbar sighs, and lets Stephanie take it from him. He sticks his hands in his pockets, and looks a lot older than she remembers.

 “I’ll see you both around,” he says, and walks around the rocky bend.

 She looks at the crystal in her hand. It’s the length and width of her thumb, no sigils; just sheer, smooth refraction. “How does it work?”

 Skulduggery takes his glove off. “Much like how your magic reacted with my sigils. But best if I lead us, I think.”

 She holds it out to him, and then hesitates, remembering Finbar’s eyes. “Maybe this is a bad idea.”

 “Oh, it absolutely is,” Skulduggery agrees. “But if you feel you aren’t up to it-” he reaches out, and she snatches it back.

 “I’m up to it,” she shrugs defiantly. He sighs, and waits for her to offer her hand back to him.

 “Slowly, now,” Skulduggery says, and his hand lays over hers, and suddenly she’s seeing through someone else’s eyes. 

 

-

 

Blood. Blood everywhere, blood on her hands and in her teeth and Stephanie startles but she can’t move; a passive observer, the taste of iron horrible and fresh and  _ oh my God, I’ve killed her.  _ Dark hair littering the floor, tiny bits of scalp at the roots, and a woman, barely recognisable as one for all the flesh stripped from her bones, lying in front of her.

 But she’s not alone.

_ Easy does it _ , a smooth voice says, and the memory flips like a book’s turning pages. Now she’s crouching on a rooftop in Ireland, watching the Dublin cobblestones splatter with rain and dirt, and Jessica is walking so tantalisingly close beneath her, and Stephanie’s head turns, watches her. Jessica’’s war crinolines are getting soaked, the rain matting her beautiful dark hair, but she walks quickly. Perhaps she knows. Perhaps she doesn’t. But as Stephanie creeps along the rooftops, it doesn’t much matter.

 Jessica takes a wrong turn, and Stephanie drops so gently to the ground, and then her teeth are in her neck-

 There’s that flicking past; she sees snippets now; a dark haired girl dead beneath a beaded dress while jazz blares in the background, war planes across the sky, a dark haired girl crying as she tries to free herself from Stephanie’s iron grip, a scratchy black and white television playing through the window, a dark haired girl trying to kick her as Stephanie holds her down, Elvis Presley on the radio as Stephanie watches a dark haired girl in trousers serving a man milkshakes, seeing how he looks at her, and Stephanie doesn’t like that at all-

 Flip, flip, flip, countless dark haired girls all with that terror on their faces, and now it’s the eighties, and Stephanie is snarling, crashing through a window as her fingers curl around the Indian vampire’s neck, ripping out his tendons and screaming and snarling, and Dusk is behind her, roaring-

_ Almost there,  _ says  that smooth voice, apologetic and familiar-

__ -she walks into the room, and Bryson is sitting on that couch, like he owns the place, like he doesn’t have his own shitty little apartment in this shitty little vampire complex. Her nostrils flare as the tang of blood hits them, and she sees the empty vacuum sealed bags like deflated skin all over her floor.

 Bryson, as indolent as ever, grins at her, and Stephanie understands this for what it is, but it doesn’t stop her from launching him out the window, and his panicked screams echo all the way down-

 The memory cuts out, and now Dusk is walking past, and she can’t resist this chance. Serpine is winning, and Dusk is both a valuable asset and a tool in his plan, but if she’s being honest, she’s just finishing the job she left when Hrishi died, writhing on the ground all those years ago.

 But Dusk isn’t Dusk, just a clever hologram she failed to notice in her eagerness for the kill, and she slams into a cage that appears from nowhere.

 “Oof,” says a scratchy English voice. “Well, ain’t that unfortunate.”

 Some sort of man-creature-goblin-thing leans out of the darkness, filthy and delighted, and taps the cage with a grotesquely long fingernail. Sigils light up and Stephanie screams, and then-

 It’s her third year in the Citadel, but her first out of the cage for more than a day a week. Sigils carved bloody into her wrists, aching, and the Cleaver behind her, clad in that eerie white, is like a ball and chain.

 There’s no point in trying to escape, of course. She knows this now. Serpine’s teleporters and their little devices are unbound by the rules of sigil law, and this Cleaver, stinking of death and magic, is as good as a lead weight, dragging her to the bottom of the ocean.

 And then, there’s a long blankness, and now Stephanie is looking at her own face, fresh and beautiful with blood and life and that long, silky dark hair, and the tall man steps in front of her, and he gaze shifts to him and his unfriendly fake face, but he can’t stop Stephanie from smelling herself, the tang of fear and feminity and-

 And then Stephanie is back in her own body, and she’s hyperventilating and her knees tremble and she almost falls before Skulduggery catches her.

 She clutches for his arms like she’s drowning.

 “I’m sorry,” he says, to her, and she realises he was the comforting voice that spoke halfway through the onslaught. “Finbar… was not exaggerating. I should have listened to him.”

 Stephanie can’t answer him. Those poor girls, she thinks to herself, a mantra over and over.  _ Those poor girls. Those poor, poor girls _ .

 (Underneath this, the knowledge if she isn’t careful, she will be one of those poor, poor girls too.)

 “Valkyrie?” 

 His voice pulls her back to the surface, and she looks at him wildly. “That was me, I  _ felt _ him do that, it was like  _ I  _ was killing them,” she says desperately, feeling like she’s going to throw up, and her fingers twisting into his shirt. 

  He doesn’t respond immediately, silent, and then says carefully,  “They’re  _ his  _ memories. Not yours.”

 “Those girls,” she tells him. “They were so afraid.”

 “I know,” he says. “I know.” And his voice is colder than anything she’s ever felt, like she’s pressed her skin to to bare steel in a snowstorm. 

  Distantly, she sees why Erskine warned her, at this rage in its most distilled form.

 And she knows that vampire is only a few feet away, and she can’t tell if she wants to rip the wall open and tear him limb from bloody limb, or get away from him as far as possible. Skulduggery says nothing again for a few minutes, and then abruptly turns.

 “My questions can wait,” he says. “Come with me.”

 Between her sore muscles and the shock, she feels like she’s going to fall over, and he loops his arm through hers for support as he leads her high and higher up the mountain. Eventually they emerge onto a tiny outcropping in the sun, the sky above her, and he sits her down on a boulder.

 “Breathe.”

 She’s trying, she really is. 

 A hand on her cheek, and he lifts her face. His facade flows away, and she’s startled by how reassuring that grinning skull is. 

 “Focus on the sunlight. Focus on the breeze,” he says, his voice gentle.

 She takes a deep breath, and holds it in, and lets it go, and Skulduggery sits next to her as she remembers how her lungs work. Their sides touch, and she leans back against the rock, watches the clouds.

 She misses her father, she thinks.

 She misses her mother. 

 Stephanie starts crying. It’s a silent thing; loud tears don’t get you anywhere. But the childish, undeniable yearning for her parents to hold her knows nothing of this platitude, and she she wishes she was a child again, back when the only thing she had to worry about was what was for dinner, and when her favourite shows were on the television.

 Skulduggery doesn’t say anything, doesn’t offer her any false hopes. But he puts his hand over hers, an anchor, and when she wipes her tears away, he turns to her.

 “Let’s get some pizza,” he suggests, and she gives a rough sort of laugh, wiping away the last of her tears.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephanie pays a few unexpected visits to Kenspeckle; Skulduggery is doing his best; Anton is the happiest man alive.
> 
> Props, as per usual, to Mooncactus's fantastic beta-ing.

Stephanie can’t sleep. 

 The vampire sits in it’s cell not even fifty metres down, and she lays in her bed, and when she closes her eyes, all she can see is blood, limp fingers, dark hair and pale eyes.

 She rolls over, tries to get comfortable, but nothing she does works; she lays there, eyes wide, until it’s time to get up the next morning. She spends those long, long hours playing with the pebble, flicking it through the air. By the next morning, she’s able to send it on wide loops, make shapes with it.

 Is this better than nightmares? She doesn’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.

 Skulduggery brings her breakfast; scrambled eggs and a thick hunk of fresh bread. She eats, but it doesn’t taste as good as usual.

 “I’m speaking to Corrival today about the vampire,” Skulduggery tells her. “There’s still that blank patch in his memory that Finbar and Cassandra haven’t been able to fill in, but if  _ they  _ can’t fix it, then I doubt anyone else can. We have to decide what to do with him.”

 Stephanie mops up the egg with the bread. She hates to say it, but she has to: “What do you mean, decide what to do with it?”

 Skulduggery tilts his head; in the safety of her room, he’s removed the facade. “Kenspeckle can’t keep making the serum forever. And Caelan has countless crimes to answer for.” 

 Stephanie looks at the yolk on her bread. “Is there going to be a trial, or something?”

 “You saw it yourself,” Skulduggery says gently. “We have his own memories on that crystal. Don’t you think a trial would be a little… redundant?”

 She grimaces, but he’s right, of course. All the proof they could ever need sits on that little piece of quartz. She passes him back the empty plates; he leaves her with her uneasy thoughts.

 

-

 

Stephanie yells as Tanith flips her over her hip and onto the mat.

 “You’re out of it today,” Tanith says. “I could have killed you even more than usual, if I wanted.”

 Stephanie groans, rolling onto her stomach. She’s exhausted, and now she’s sore too. It’s a bad combination.

 “Come on, up you get,” Tanith says, and Stephanie lets her pull her up. “Let’s go through that pattern again.”

 They do, but Stephanie’s heart still isn’t in it, and after another ten minutes, Tanith says, “Enough.”

 “But we aren’t done,” Stephanie protests.

 “Yes, we are,” Tanith tells her. She sits down on the bench, and pats the seat next to her; Stephanie sits down. “I don’t know where your head is, but I can’t teach you like this, Val. What’s going on?”

  Stephanie hesitates; she isn’t sure if she’s allowed to tell Tanith this. But Tanith looks at her patiently, kindly, and so she finds herself telling Tanith everything, about her dad, about Marr, about the vampire and his memories.

 When she finishes, Tanith does something unexpected; she pulls Stephanie into a hug. Stephanie tears up a little, roughly wipes her eyes as Tanith leans back.

 “That’s rough as hell, Val,” she says. “It sounds like you need a good, long sleep.”

 “I can’t,” Stephanie mutters. “Knowing its cell is just down from my room is freaking me out.”

 “It can’t get out though,” Tanith says reasonably. “You’re safe in there.”

 “I know. But it doesn’t change how I feel.” She wraps her arms around herself. “And… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I  _ want _ him to die? But…”

 “The decision’s not up to you,” Tanith reminds her. “What happens next isn’t your problem.”

 “I think they’ll kill him.”   
 “ _ Execute _ him,” Tanith corrects her. “That’s what they do to criminals, Val.”

 “But what about the justice system? Shouldn’t he just… be stuck in that room? Forever?”

 “In peacetime? Absolutely. But this is war, Val. Sometimes… that’s just how it is.” Tanith pats her shoulder. “Why don’t we try some meditation? That might help clear your mind a little.”

 They do. It doesn’t.

 

-

 

Where her lack of sleep fails her with sparring practice, it makes up for in her magic skills; Skulduggery is visibly impressed with the pebble whizzing around the room, has her send it through specific shapes and patterns, slow and fast. 

 “I have to admit,” he says. “I wasn’t expecting you to progress so quickly overnight.”

 She shrugs. Skulduggery doesn’t comment on this; just has her spin the pebble on its axis while spelling out his name mid air. When she’s done, he sends it back into her palm with a flick.

 “Now crush it. Without touching it.”

 Stephanie stares at the pebble, lifts it above her palm. As it sits in the air, lazily rotating, she closes her other hand into a fist.

 It’s a strange thing; she tries pushing those strings in, rather than pulling them, and the stone shudders, drops into her palm.

 “Not bad,” Skulduggery says. “Try again. Think of it not so much as physically compressing it; you want dust. Not a diamond.”

 Stephanie does try again; tries and tries, until fresh sweat is beading on her face from the sheer force of will she’s exerting. But she gets nothing for her troubles, and Skulduggery grunts, sending the pebble into her palm with a gentle motion.

 “You’re still trying to do too much at once,” he says. 

 “Well, what am I meant to do?”

 He shrugs. “Find a fault line. Use it to your advantage.”

 “That’s  _ real _ helpful.”

 Skulduggery’s fake eyes blink lazily, and with a single circular twirl of his index finger, the pebble is suddenly dust in her hand. He raises each individual speck of it, like stars in the sky, and with the gentlest pinch of his thumb and forefinger, suddenly the dust is a pebble once more, floating between them. She gapes.

 “A light touch,” he tells her. “That’s all you need.”

 He sends the pebble eddying towards her, and she gracelessly keeps it suspended as he lets it go.

 Find a fault line? How does she even go about doing that? She regards the pebble, feels the surface of it, her magic calling. It answers, every little bit of it. 

 “That’s it,” Skulduggery says. “You’re close.”

 Stephanie closes her eyes. 

 “Remember, it’s not one giant thing, but many tiny things.” His voice lulls her, smooths her. She tries that spinning-finger motion like he did, but the pebble just flicks out into the air, and she sighs, watching it bounce and roll on the ground.

 

-

 

Another night of sleeplessness; she lays in the bed, watching the pebble as she watches it spin in front of her.

 Blood and teeth lurk behind her eyes; she’ll doze off for twenty minutes, and then she’ll be back there in it’s head, she’ll be killing those girls once more.

 A fault line, Skulduggery had said. What if this is her fault line? She always thought of herself as rough and tumble, but it’s starting to feel too much. It’s disgusting, uncomfortable; the thought that she isn’t what she thought she was, that she’s  _ weak _ .

 She tries to crush the pebble again; she can feel it quivering, feel it flexing. She searches for that fault line, tugs on each of those strings. 

 A thought occurs to her, and she sits up, and brings her hands in opposing motions, one hand slicing down while the other slices up, and the pebble cracks into two rough halves, landing on her lap.

 Stephanie grins, and then frowns; no matter what she does, they won’t stick back together.

 

-

 

Tanith and her spend the next couple of days practicing how to fall, how to roll, how to take a hit. As it turns out, this is just as difficult and just as painful as learning how to punch.

 Tanith wears boxing gloves and Stephanie practices folding around her fist like cloth. This is also, unsurprisingly, painful.

 “Engage your core,” Tanith says cheerfully, as Stephanie grunts and leans over from a kick into her abdomen. “This isn’t blocking; this is using your wasted time to formulate your next move.”

 “What if my next move is keeling over?” she manages.

 Tanith laughs. “As long as you keel over strategically, I don’t care.”

 She lazily jabs, and Stephanie barely blocks in time, watching as Tanith shifts her weight-  _ now _ , she thinks, and hip-and-shoulders into her. Tanith is a mountain immoveable, and Stephanie watches the world tilt as Tanith uses her momentum to send Stephanie into a throw that has her spinning onto the floor. She tries to keep relaxed and turn the momentum into a roll, but comes up on one knee, panting as something jabs into her side.

 “Much better,” Tanith says, and then looks concerned as Stephanie struggles to stand up, the pain becoming agony, and the last thing she sees is Tanith reaching for her as she falls back to her knees.

 

-

 

She fades back into consciousness, rising to the surface. Dazed, she blinks her eyes a few times and looks around.

 Kenspeckle sits a few feet away over a desk. She’s on a sturdy but uncomfortable hospital stretcher type of bed.

 “Don’t move quite yet,” Kenspeckle says without looking up. “Ms. Low fractured your rib.”

 She feels fine, though, feels calm, her breath circulating through her body like the ocean currents, steady and strong. 

 “That girl,” Kenspeckle continues. “That amount of people she’s had to drag in here...”

 “We were just training,” Stephanie says defensively. 

 “That makes no difference to me,” Kenspeckle says, marking something down in a notebook. “Looks like Bespoke’s losing his touch. His clothes should have broken your fall.”

 “This isn’t protective,” she says, touching the t-shirt reflexively. “It’s just for working out.”

 “Low is a mercenary,” he continues. “A good girl, though a trained killer nonetheless. She needs to be more careful. You mortals are fragile.”

 She blinks, and then gets up. He looks up then, frowning, and says, “Lay back down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

 “So what if I’m fragile?” she says, wincing a little as her side begins to ache. “I’m in this war, just like the rest of you.”

 “Alright, alright,” Kenspeckle says, a reluctant sort of smile. “You’ve made your point, you’re very tough. Now lay back down before I sedate you.”

 She wants to stand up even more, but the pain in her rib is becoming ferocious, and she collapses back down; almost instantaneously, the pain fades. 

 “I fought off a vampire, you know,” she tells him. 

 “Yes. And you got lucky,” he says. “Look, Valkyrie, I like you. You’re not afraid to speak your mind, and you give Pleasant a run for his money. But sorcerers like him and Tanith grew up with this sort of thing. They’re made for it. They  _ breathe _ it.”

 “Maybe,” she says. “But they need my help.”

 Kenspeckle sighs, wheels his chair over, holding a little bowl of what looks and smells like mud.  

 “This is going to be cold,” he warns her. “Pull your shirt up a little.”

 “Fine,” she mutters, pulls it up towards the brand of her bra. She flinches as he dabs it on with a sponge, but moments after it touches her skin, it warms up.

 “You’re a brave girl, my dear,” Kenspeckle says. “But my daughter was a brave girl once. And it got her nowhere but dead.”

 Stephanie stares at the ceiling as he finishes sponging the mud on.

 “I know you’re thinking,” Kenspeckle says. “what an old fuddy-duddy, lecturing a grown woman about safety.”

 “Well,” Stephanie says, grinning despite herself. “I am  _ now _ .”

 “When you get to my age, everyone is young,” Kenspeckle continues. “It’s hard not to get a little protective of the good ones.” He pats her shoulder. “Lie there for another half hour, and you should be fine.”

 She closes her eyes, exhaustion overtaking her; even as she thinks of the horrors the vampire has committed, she is being pulled irresistibly to sleep.

 

-

 

She’s standing over her father. His blood is in her mouth, and his lifeless body lolling from her grip. Her mother’s necklace glints with blood, and suddenly its not her father she’s holding, but herself; tangled, dark hair, sticky with blood.

_ Valkyrie _ .

 She leans in, opening her jaw, feeling the skin peel away from her knuckles, deathly white underneath-

_ Valkyrie. _

 Stephanie opens her eyes, sweating. Skulduggery is standing by the bed, his hand mere centimetres short of resting on her forearm. He pulls it back to his side like she’s burnt him.

 “Skulduggery?”

 He looks down at her. “You were having a bad dream.”

 She looks away. “What time is it?”

 “About four in the afternoon,” Kenspeckle says from his desk. “You looked like you needed some rest.”

 She sits up; her ribs feel as good as new.

 “Tanith had to run some errands,” Skulduggery tells her. “But she sends her deepest apologies.”

 “Ah, it’s fine,” Stephanie says, swing her legs over the bed and onto the floor. She yawns. “Better here than out there, right?” 

 “I suppose,” he says, tilting his head. 

 “Oh,” she says, reaching into her pocket. She takes out the two halves of the pebble, and presents it to him. He looks at them, and his facade smiles.

 “I can’t put it back together, though,” she tells him.

 “It’s harder to mend than it is to destroy,” Skulduggery tells her. “But not impossible.”

 “Show me,” she says.

 “I will. But I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day. Let’s go get you something to eat.”

 “You always know just what to say.”

 “I try, dear. I try.”

 “You know,” Kenspeckle says loudly. “She can eat  _ here _ .”

 Skulduggery clears his throat, looks at Stephanie.

 “I’ll pass on the hospital jello, thanks,” Stephanie says, and hops off the bed. When Skulduggery turns his facade back on, there’s a tiny little smile, almost small enough she doesn’t see it.  

 Kenspeckle gives them both a curmudgeonly look as they leave.

 

-

 

They sit in a literal hole in the wall that has been repurposed to serve as a bakery, hunched over toasted cheese sandwiches. Stephanie grunts as she tries to squeeze the pebble back together, but it falls back into halves as soon as she releases the magic.

 “You’re going to give yourself a hernia,” Skulduggery says, amused. 

 “I can’t get it to hold,” she complains. 

 “Of course you can’t. It’s not a jigsaw puzzle. It’s a pebble. Let it be one.”

 He reaches over her pile of toasted cheeses and gestures lazily; the two hemispheres join seamlessly with nary a sound.

 Stephanie pockets the pebble and picks up her third grilled cheese. “Have you guys decided what to do with…  _ him _ ?”

 Skulduggery tilts his head. “Caelan?”

 She shrugs.

 “We’ll be having an official discussion in a few days to decide, which you can attending.”

 She’s silent for a moment as she chews her sandwich and then says, casually, “When will I have a room in the residential part of the caves?”

 Skulduggery tilts his head. “Not for several more weeks at least. Why?”

 She feels dread pool in her stomach, cold and heavy, and says. “No reason.”

 He says nothing while she eats, watching the pile of sandwiches disappear one by one, and then he says, “You haven’t been able to sleep because of his memories, haven’t you?”

 Stephanie looks at him, considering lying, but finds herself nodding instead. “How’d you know?”   
 “You literally would have had to stay up all night to figure out how break that pebble so quickly,” he says. “And I know you like sleep far too much to do that. Also, I was a detective, in case you somehow forgot.”

 She licks the crumbs off her fingers, offers him no response. What is there to say, really?

 He nods, like her silence is a reply. “Shall we get some ice-cream?”

 She stares at him. “Ice cream? They have  _ ice-cream?” _

 “Well, gelati, to be more accurate.”

 She reaches across the table, puts her hands on his shoulders. “Why. Did you not tell me this. Before.”

 “I must confess, I’m concerned you’re about to murder me.”

 “I won’t if you take me to the frozen treats.”

 “Promise?”

 “Promise.”

 

-

 

Walking back to her room, lemon gelati dripping down her fingers, she feels better; reassured. The sharpness, the sweetness, it’s fortifying; grounding, the lemon juice making her tongue sting.

 “What food do you miss the most?” she asks Skulduggery, who walks on her right as they pass through the overarching rock. “Where you a sweet tooth, or more of an  _ umami  _ guy?”  

 “Considering I died before the concept of  _ umami _ was brought into Western culture, definitely not.”

 “I missed pizza the most. God, there used to be this pizzeria just a few blocks away, when I was a kid. We’d get a family combo every Friday night.” She licks the cone absentmindedly, looking at him for his response.

 “Bread,” he says eventually.

 “That’s… really disappointing.  _ Bread _ ?”

 “What?”   
 “I mean, it’s just… bland.”   
 “I’m not talking about wonderloaf or whatever that white nonsense was, Valkyrie. I’m talking about thick, crusty sourdough with herbs and cheese baked through, fresh out of the oven. The type where the crust is so dense you almost have to break it with a hammer to get it open.”   
 “Wow,” she says. “Alright, you like bread, okay.”

 “It’s a staple food,” he says. “A  _ good _ staple food.”

 Stephanie frowns as a thought occurs to her. “Wait, does this mean you never actually got to eat pizza?”

 “I was a few hundred years late, unfortunately.”   
 Stephanie puts a sticky hand on his forearm and says, very seriously, “I’m so sorry.”

 “I’ll survive. Your hand is covered in gelati, by the way.”

 “My condolences. If you ever want to talk about it…”

 “You’re getting sugar on me,” he says. She pats his forearm.

 “I’m here for you, Skulduggery,” she says solemnly. 

 “ _ Please _ stop touching my suit with your sticky lemon fingers.” He looks up, and says, with a tone of no small relief, “Oh, what a shame. We’re at your room. I suppose you’ll have to stop getting gelati all over me.”

 Stephanie blinks, looking around; her familiar patch of wall sits just next to her, and that dread seeps back up as she looks further down the way, in the direction of the vampire’s cell.

 “Try to open it,” Skulduggery says, unmindful. 

 Stephanie, jolted back to reality, slurps down the last of her gelati and chomps down the rudimentary wafer cone, brushes her hands of crumbs.  _ Eurgh _ . Skulduggery wasn’t exaggerating about the sticky part.

 She takes a strong posture, focusing, feeling her magic coil within her, and swipes down in opposing directions like she did with her pebble. She can feel the wall before her, a giant mass, and as her hands move she reaches out with her magic, grabs those strings, and  _ tears _ .

 Stephanie can feel her hands catching on it, scrabbling, and she hooks her fingers and twists her body, and her eyes widen as there’s a gratifying rumble, a sharpness, but she sighs as nothing changes. Skulduggery leans in and examines the wall.

 “Oh  _ ho _ ,” he says cheerfully. “Look at that.”   
 Stephanie leans in, and he points at a hairline crack, the length of her hand, in the middle of where he usually splits the wall open.

 “Not bad at all,” Skulduggery continues. Stephanie leans back, takes the stance again, hands back to back like she’s trying to pry open a sliding door, trying to hook into it once more.

 She can feel her sore muscles protesting, feel her ligaments groaning, and she yells as she rips her hands apart with all her might; the rock cracks.

 Her yell echoes down the cave. Skulduggery turns to look at her.

 “Dramatic,” he says. “And crude. And terrible technique.”

 She ignores this, leaning in; the crack is visibly wider and longer. 

 “Brute strength,” he says. “Admirable, but inefficient. It doesn’t have to be that hard.”

 And with a lazy little flick of his hand, the wall crumbles open, quiet and meek.

 “Well, good night,” Skulduggery says, and her eyes glance down that dark hallway.

 “Why don’t you come in?” she says quickly.

 Skulduggery lowers his hand. “Are you asking, or suggesting?”   
 “Ordering,” she says. 

 “I have… things to do.”

 “What type of things?” She says, crossing her arms with a grin.

 He shrugs. “Things,” he says, and is his voice a little strained? “Important things.”

 “But I get so bored in there,” she says, covering her genuine need to be alone with a laugh. “Please?”

 “There go all my evening plans, I suppose,” he says with reluctance, and they both step into her room as the wall seals up behind them.

 

-

 

She wakes up gradually, fading into consciousness; she’s lying in bed, the blanket tightly wrapped around her, and she’s confused; she was just telling Skulduggery how she thinks rock and roll was overrated, where’s he gone?

 Her clock tells her it’s seven in the morning. She must have fallen asleep, and he must have let himself out. The thought is… strange., and she’s further discomfitted by waking up in her suit.

 She remembers sitting under the covers for warmth while they talked, but she doesn’t remember dozing off, doesn’t remember pulling the quilt over herself. She gets up, gets ready for the day. Once she buttons up one of the new shirts Ghastly gave her (a dark and surprisingly tasteful floral print) she tries opening her wall once more; she brings her hands down and there’s a distinct crack, the sensation of magic tearing the stone asunder, but she can’t pull it, can’t open it, like Skulduggery did.

 She tries again, tries to find the fault lines, the weakness she can exploit. Nothing. 

 Stephanie sits back on the bed and ties instead to fix her pebble again, holding the two pieces together and concentrating, searching. She swears a little bit in her head when nothing happens, pouring her magic into it,  _ forcing _ it. If she can’t find these connections, she thinks, she’ll make her own. 

 So she takes those little strings and she ties them together, and when she opens her hands, the pebble stays together.

 A knock on the wall and she calls out; Skulduggery pokes his head in.

 “You’re a terrible hostess,” he says. “Falling asleep in the middle of our rousing debate.”

 She sends the pebble flying at his skull, and he reaches out, catches it and examines it.

 “I did it,” she says.

 He turns the pebble, running it along his fingers, sleight-of-hand bemused. “You certainly did.” He sends it back to her, and she catches it just in time to see it crack into quarters.

 “Oh, come  _ on _ ,” she complains. The wall fully opens, and Skulduggery steps through to offer her a plate of bacon and eggs on toast, which mollifies her just a little. 

 

-

 

Tanith trains her even harder than before, pushing her muscles to their limit; she comes to her lessons with Skulduggery shaking with exhaustion, arms struggling to stay upright as he has her manipulating clouds of dust, several pebbles at a time, attempting to lift heavier and heavier objects.

 “Can’t you just teach me to throw fire?” she begs him after a particularly exhausting exercise, wherein she moves the dust in complex patterns, like thousands of birds in the sky.

 “Fire is dangerous,” he says. “You can’t burn yourself with a pebble.”

 Tanith, meanwhile, refuses to teach her how to use weapons.

 “I don’t have the time to teach you how to use one,” she says, and Stephanie rolls out of the way as she lashes out with her scabbarded sword. “It’ll just weigh you down.”

 “But Skulduggery has those revolvers,” she says. “And you have that awesome sword.”

 She yelps as Tanith raps her in the shin with her awesome sword, tripping her.

 “And you’ll get an awesome weapon eventually,” Tanith promises. “But you’re not ready for one right now. I’d rather you be alive and running, than dead with your own weapon in your killer’s hands.”

 And she knows they’re right, but she doesn’t like it; she lies in her bed each night, sleepless, acutely aware of the monster only metres down from her, her still quartered pebble on her bedside table.

 That night of sleep is long gone, and she wakes from stuttering start sleeps, every morning a drudgery, until three nights later, as Skulduggery goes to leave after he brings her dinner, she says, “Don’t.”

 He looks back at her. “Don’t what?”

 “Leave. Don’t leave,” she says, hating how she sounds, how her muscles are exhausted and longing for rest, but her jaw is tight and her head buzzing.

 He looks at her patiently.

 “I still can’t sleep,” Stephanie says. “Not when it’s so close to me. I’m exhausted, Skulduggery.”

 “We still don’t have rooms,” Skulduggery says. “I would have moved you to one by now, Valkyrie. I’m sorry.”

 “I know,” she says. “I just… can’t you help me?”   
 “I can try,” Skulduggery tells her. “Shall we do some breathing exercises? Meditation?”

 She quirks her lip. He laughs.

 “No,” he says. “I guess it’s not quite your style.”   
 “You could sing me a lullaby,” she says jokingly.

 He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, in a strange tone, “Well, get comfortable, then.”   
 Stephanie blinks in surprise, but settles into her mattress, pulls her covers over herself; he waves a hand, and the lantern dim a little.

 “My repoirtre is limited,” he warns her, as he sits at the desk. 

 “As long as it gets me to sleep,” she says, “I don’t care.”

 So he sings, his voice smooth and gentle, honey in the air;  _ Me and Mrs Jones _ , and she’s glad the covers are pulled up to her ears because even as the warmth of his voice is lulling her to sleep, it’s making her blush too, a heat pooling low and lazy in her belly. He finishes  _ Me and Mrs Jones,  _ and then starts singing a Stevie Wonder song, a slower version of  _ Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours) _ , and before he even finishes the first chorus, she’s asleep.

 

-

 

He doesn’t say anything the next day, when she shows up trembling from her sparring with Tanith, but there’s something in how he speaks, something in how he directs her, that seems… gentler. Not softer, but less demanding, and yet he seems… further away, as well.

 Skulduggery takes apart a rock sedimentary layer by sedimentary layer and shows her how to encourage reconnection.

 “When you put that pebble back together,” he tells her, “You didn’t recreate how it was before; you forged new connections, like jamming a puzzle piece into the wrong place. It may hold, but it isn’t quite the same. I suspect you’re feeling for magic, but not for the stone itself.”

 “Alright,” she shrugs, and she reaches out with her magic while he puts the pebble’s quarters back together with deliberate slowness.

 She kind of understands; she can feel the rock almost snapping together like Lego.

 “How are you keeping it there, though?” Stephanie asks him.

 “Once it’s in place, I do what you did; I seal it together. You just skipped an important step.”

 He passes it to her, and before he can do it on her behalf, she reaches out with her magic in a stroke of inspiration and raps hard on the center of the pebble; it cracks neatly down the middle and splits into quarters once more.

 “Exactly,” he says approvingly.

-

 

Two days later, as Tanith teaches her how to break out of a chokehold, Skulduggery appears at the entrance early.

 “Hey,” Stephanie says cheerfully, flipping Tanith over her back. “You’re early.”

 Tanith rolls up, and takes advantage of Stephanie’s distraction to tackle her into the mat.

 “It’s time,” Skulduggery says. “We’re meeting to discuss Caelan’s fate.”

 Stephanie sits up, looking at him, discomfort prickling along her skin. “Oh.”

 Skulduggery’s facade looks at her gently. “You don’t have to come with me.”

 “No,” she says quickly, and Tanith puts a supportive hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go.” She climbs up, slides her jacket on, acutely aware she wore her protective clothing today. 

 “You’ll be fine,” Tanith tells her, and Stephanie finds herself wrapped in a comforting hug. 

 “Okay,” Stephanie nods, and Tanith lets her go, musses her hair. Stephanie laughs, slapping away her hands, follows Skulduggery out of the door. They catch sight of Dexter a few hallways down, and he joins them, walking on Skulduggery’s other side.

 “You’re looking buff,” he says to Stephanie. “We’ll have to spar sometime.”

 She raises a brow. “Yeah, I’m sure beating up a mortal will be an interesting battle.”

 Dexter laughs. “Hey, maybe  _ you’ll _ win.”

 “In a battle of minds, maybe,” Stephanie replies. “But that wouldn’t be fair on you.”  

 Skulduggery’s facade has a smile ticking at the corner of its mouth, and Dexter grins.

 “I looked at the vamp’s memories,” he says in a quieter tone. “That was some nasty shit. I know what I’ll be voting for.”

 “As do I,” Skulduggery murmurs.

 “What about you, Val?” Dexter asks.

 She blinks. “I get a vote?”

 “I… don’t know, actually,” Dexter admits.

 “You don’t,” Skulduggery confirms. “But I think it’s important you be there.”

 Stephanie shrugs, trying to avoid those memories looming up, and is actually grateful when they come to the wall the vampire is trapped behind.

 Ghastly, Corrival and a man Stephanie doesn’t recognise wait out the front. 

 “Erskine’s already in there,” Corrival says. “Making sure the vampire isn’t about to turn any time soon. Hello, Valkyrie.”

 “Hi,” she says, reassured by his presence a little. He looks very grandfatherly today, and between him in front of her and Skulduggery beside her, perhaps this won’t be so… distressing.

 “My name is Anton Shudder,” the man she doesn’t recognise says. An East Asian man, with a closely shaved head and beautiful, dark eyes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, but a shame it was not under better circumstances.”

 His voice is measured and quiet, and she shakes his outstretched hand; a gold wedding band sits on his ring finger. “Same to you,” Stephanie says. “Congratulations are in order, I suppose?” she says, looking at the wedding band. Anton smiles. “Yes. I’m an extraordinarily happy man.”

 “Sorry I’m late,” Saracen says as he rounds the corner.

 “Alright,” Corrival says. “In we go.”

 He waves the wall open, and they all step in.

 With all of the Dead Men in there, it’s even tighter than before. Caelan sits with his back to the entrance, facing Erskine, who is putting away a syringe. The Dead Men fan out in a semi circle, facing Caelan, but Skulduggery remains besides Stephanie, behind Caelan, out of sight.

 “Hello, Valkyrie,” Caelan says quietly, his head turning towards her, and Stephanie tenses. 

 “Caelan Hiems,” Corrival says, and now he isn’t grandfatherly at all. She can see a cool steel in those old eyes. “We are here today to vote on your sentence, as previously discussed. Do you have anything to say in your defence? A request for amnesty, perhaps?”

 Caelan says nothing. The light catches on the bite marks on his neck.

 “We have all viewed your memories,” Corrival continues. “And by extensions, the many victims you have killed.”

 “All of you?” Caelan asks, and Corrival frowns.

 “That’s what he said, yes,” Saracen says.

 “Her as well?” Caelan says, trying to twist in Stephanie’s direction, a strange tone in his voice. Not fear, not shame, but  _ curiosity _ , and she is filled with disgust and anger and her fingers curl into fists; she wants to hurt him, she realises.

 Corrival ignores this. “By our count, you have killed forty seven innocent women.”

 Her stomach curls at the number. Caelan says nothing, still twisted towards Stephanie. 

 “I can see regret in your memories,” Corrival continues. “But not shame, or a desire for redemption. Do any of you have anything to add to this?” he says. None of the Dead Men say a thing, and Stephanie finds herself speaking.

 “Why?” she asks.

 “Why what?” Caelan says quietly, and she stalks towards him, into his line of sight, those dark eyes locking on to her. She thinks, for a second, she can see tears in his eyes, and this only fuels her.

 “Why did you kill all of them? They didn’t do a thing to you.” Her anger is transmuting into something, a sorrowful rage. “What is  _ wrong _ with you?”

 “Valkyrie,” Skulduggery says. She ignores him.

 “You’re  _ sick _ ,” she says, her fingers curling around the edges of his arm rests. She wants to hurt him, wants him to feel like those poor girls looked, wants to rap his skull open like her pebble, and this is an all encompassing thing she hasn’t felt since her mother died, all those years ago. “I watched you, through your own  _ eyes _ , murder those girls! So what if you’re sorry? You didn’t  _ stop _ !”

 It’s definitely tears in his eyes. His chair is made of stone, and she suddenly realises her magic is sparking, her fingers cracking and crumbling into it, she wants to slam his head and those awful sad eyes into the ground and into the walls, and Corrival is there, a hand on her forearm.

 “Valkyrie,” he says gently, and she realises she’s crying, and she lets him pull her back.

 “Time to vote,” Corrival says, wraps an arm around Stephanie’s shoulders. She locks eyes with Skulduggery, who is watching her with an expression she doesn’t know how to read, standing with a foot forward like he was reaching out to her. He looks away, and joins Ghastly within Caelan’s line of sight, who is still looking at her. She looks back with all the disgust and hatred she can muster.

 “All those in favour of execution, raise your hand,” Corrival says.

 Skulduggery’s hand is up first; Ghastly and Dexter follow suit. 

 “All those in favour of keeping him alive until we can uncover his memories, raise your hand.”

 Corrival raises his other hand, and he looks at her apologetically. Anton, Saracen and Erskine raise theirs as well.

 “Well,” Corrival says. “That’s that.”

 

-

 

Skulduggery sits with her again, that night; watching how in between bites of her pizza, she breaks and joins the pebble back together with increasing speed, slotting neater and neater every time. She’s… furious. But there’s no point in arguing; the decision has been made. They saw the memories, same as her, and they chose the bigger picture. 

   “We should have a new room for you soon,” Skulduggery offers, after half an hour of silence. “By tomorrow night, in fact.”

 “I guess can make it through one more night,” she says quietly.

 “This time tomorrow, you’ll have a room with a door. How delightfully bourgeoise.”

 She laughs despite herself. “I guess I’ll never learn to open my wall, huh?”

 “About that,” Skulduggery says hesitantly. “I... never expected you to actually be able to do it.”

 She narrows her eyes. If this is an attempt to distract her, he has succeeded. “Excuse me?”

 “It’s extremely high level magic. I may have been joking a little when I said it, actually. But then you seemed to latch onto it, and I thought, I can’t shatter her dreams now, can I?”

 She throws the pebble at his head, and he lets it bounce off his skull.

 “Ass,” she says.

 “If it makes you feel any better,” he offers, “That you managed to crack the wall at all was exceptional.”

 She smiles. “That  _ does _ make me feel a little better,” she admits.

 “In any case-”

 “Hold on,” Stephanie says. “I didn’t say you could stop with the compliments now, did I?”

 “My apologies,” he says smoothly. 

 She makes a hand motion to say,  _ get on with it, then _ . 

 “Where to begin,” he says theatrically, standing and gesturing, his voice booming; she grins. “My fair lady, vanquisher of foul monsters and foodstuffs, your wit is as sharp as a butter knife, and your tongue made to match.” He pauses, looks at her. “Is that enough?”

 She’s still grinning, but she shakes her head. “Sarcasm doesn’t count.”

 “Fair enough,” he nods.

 “Is it so difficult to say something nice?” she says innocently.

 “Only when it’s you,” he says, and his tone is as light and innocent as hers. 

 “Well,” she says. “I think you have a nice voice. There. Complimented.”

 “You aren’t wrong.”

 “Now,  _ you _ return the favor.”

 “Hhm,” he says doubtfully. “I suppose I  _ could _ say something about your eyes. Or chin. People like being told nice things about their chins, don’t they?”

 She makes a face. 

 “Perhaps not,” Skulduggery murmurs.

 “I’m still waiting,” she reminds him.

 He looks away and then says, in a low, slow voice, “ _ Thy head is a casket, of the cool jewel of thy mind; the hair of thy head is one warrior, innocent of defeat; thy hair upon thy shoulders is an army, with victory and with trumpets _ -”

__ “You stole that from a poem,” she accuses, laughing even as she feels her ears grow warm, but Skulduggery doesn’t immediately answer her, head tilting out towards the wall.

 “What is it?” she asks, shifting; the leg tucked beneath her is fuzzy with pins and needles. He suddenly stands up.

 “Wait here,” he says, and strides through the suddenly parted wall; the rock rumbles back together behind him, and she frowns.

 Stephanie slides off the bed and approaches the wall carefully, presses her ear to it; she can’t hear a thing, of course.

 But that knot inside of her is shifting strangely, and some instinct compels her to reach out to the rock. Stephanie lays flesh to stone and feels a reverberation, an echo, passing by her palm. She doesn’t know what it is, but that instinct rears, and she closes her eyes.

 She doesn’t know how to phrase it, but it surely must be like echolocation; she flows into the rock and something far away is cracking, feet to ground, an echoing  _ boom _ that has her eyes flying open:

 A gunshot.

 Stephanie yanks on her suit jacket, hastily shoves her feet into her shoes, and stands before the insurmountable face of rock before her.

 Another gunshot, closer now. Skulduggery’s out there, and she knows they’re a ways from any capable sorcerer. She reaches out, tears through the air with her hand, and the wall cracks down the middle.

_ It doesn’t have to be hard _ , Skulduggery had told her. She tries worming her magic into the rock, searching for that perfect little spot. It’s so much more difficult, layers and complexity her little pebble lacks. But she can’t just sit idle, listening to Skulduggery shoot at God knows what, twiddling her thumbs.

 She gives up on finding that faulty join, and tries something else; she twists her hands a new way, and forms a horizontal crack instead, grunting like Tanith has her squatting with weights on her shoulders as she tenses and pushes up against thousands of years of sediment.

 No more gunshots, and she sits back on her haunches, and then launches herself at the wall, ramming with everything she has, her magic like armour around her elbow as it hits the wall.

 The rock splinters, a hole the size of her head, and as she stops to breathe, leans to look through, Caelan is there, staring at her.

 Stephanie stares, blood chilled, and then someone hauls him back; a flash of a suit she knows well, and that low, smooth voice suddenly swears in pain.

 Hearing Skulduggery say  _ fuck _ snaps her into action, and it’s so much easier now the hole is there; she rips out rock by rock as the vampire wriggles out of Skulduggery’s choke hold, rams him into the opposite wall.

 “Stay right there,” Skulduggery tells her, grunting as he rolls out of the way. 

 God, she wants to, but the close quarters environment has Skulduggery at a disadvantage, and she can’t just  _ leave him out there _ . He’d never let her hear the end of it.

 (That furious part of her howls for blood.)

 She shoulders into the hole, that instinctive magic in it, and it blows out wider, a sizeable chunk slamming into Caelan’s head just as Skulduggery is attempting to draw his second gun while ducking out of the way; his dark eyes snap to her, and even as she’s realising she can get out but he can get  _ in _ , he’s climbing through the hole.

 Stephanie backs into her desk, and she curses as all her papers fall to the ground, scrambling for something to defend herself with, where’s her  _ sigil pen! _ Skulduggery launches himself through the hole in the wall and Caelan is already moving to meet him, sends him flying into the bathroom door, which splinters; he crashes into the shower cubicle and lays there, motionless. She realises, in horror, Caelan has ripped Skulduggery’s hands off; he drops them on the floor and she feels ill.

 Stephanie is fumbling for anything she can use as a weapon when Caelan turns his attentions back to her. 

 “You’ve been here the entire time?” he asks her, surprised, stepping over her papers, like this is all fine, like he hasn’t just tossed Skulduggery into a wall like paper into a bin, like he hasn’t killed forty seven women, like he isn’t cornering her in her own  _ space _ .

 Her hand closes on something, something small. 

 Her pebble.

 “I’m sorry you had to see me like that,” Caelan says. “I’m surprised they let you watch those memories.”

 “We didn’t know,” she says, trying to buy time until Skulduggery wakes up. “Finbar tried to warn us.”

 “Are you frightened of me?” he asks her, and she forces herself not to snap back  _ duh _ .

 “You gave me nightmares,” she says instead, and is disgusted by how he manages to look glad and remorseful at the same time. “I haven’t been able to sleep for days,” she adds, when she sees behind him- Skulduggery’s foot twitching.

 Caelan approaches, and as she goes to say something, anything, his body contracts, and he grimaces, hand to his chest.

 “They took my serum,” Caelan tells her, and for a second, he looks like a sad teenage boy, but those eyes are hungry, the pupils blowing out past the irises. “I wanted to get to know you. I wanted to be  _ better _ for you. But it’s out of my hands now.”

 And he takes his fingers to his chest, tearing through his clothes and into his skin and rips everything off. As she sees that alabaster flesh revealed beneath, she takes a deep breath and sends her pebble as hard, as fast as he can; it lodges into the vampire’s right eye and it  _ howls _ , scrabbling to get it out as black blood splashes onto her papers in thick, heavy drops. Some part of her wonders if Caelan is in there, if he can see her, if she’s about to become the final girl with long, dark hair to lay bleeding out at his hands.

 But the majority of her, the part aching with lessons Tanith beat into her, is trembling with adrenaline and when the vampire bounds across the room she throws herself out of the way, scrambling back on all fours as it smacks into the wall. If she can get out, she can run for help; the hole in the wall is just behind her.

 Skulduggery appears at the bathroom doorway.

 “Don’t move,” he warns her quietly. The vampire is snarling, clearly deciding which of the two of them is to be dinner first. It picks the fleshier option, of course.

 She doesn’t move, but the vampire doesn’t care; leaps at Stephanie, and she goes to roll but her hand lands badly. The vampire’s claws tangle in her hair as she tries to move and she screams, reaches out in a burst of fury and panic, and-

 The wall crunches together, Mother Nature moving furious, rocks rumbling and screeching and the vampire screams as the rock traps it. Stephanie’s head is yanked up as her hair gets trapped in the wall too, and she yelps in pain as her head smashes backwards into the rock wall.

 Skulduggery crosses the room so fast he’s a blur. She’s kneeling to stop her hair tugging at her head, tears of pain in her eyes.

 “Are you okay?” he asks her frantically, pulling her collar down, checking her neck. “Did it bite you?” She shakes her head, and then grimaces when the motion pulls at her scalp, opening up a warm pain that wasn’t there before. She reaches back, and her hand hits something sticky; blood.

 Skulduggery stands up, wordless; he opens a hole in the wall and slips through, and seconds later, the vampire’s legs go slack. The hole trapping it widens and it falls to the ground. Stephanie’s hair frees up, and she sits down as her thighs suddenly give out.

 Skulduggery drags the vampire out of her room entirely, and she’s dimly aware of him calling for assistance on his little communicator. Her room is an absolute  _ mess _ . Paper litters the floor; her quilt has a rip down the middle. Dust and rocks, everywhere, and thick, black blood staining it all.

 “Valkyrie,” Skulduggery says, and she raises her eyes to look at him. The pain in the back of her head is becoming all-encompassing. Behind him, she can see Dexter and Erskine picking the vampire up. “I’m going to take you to the Professor. Can you stand?”

 She nods, blinking. She can feel herself trembling, but it’s not anything new; just shock, and draining adrenaline. She lets him pull her up, and her knees wobble; he loops an arm around her waist, and leads her out of the room.

 “Did you kill it?” Stephanie asks him. Her legs are still trembling, but the security of his arm is like an anchor.

 He doesn’t say anything for a second, and then; “I simply finished him off.”

 Stephanie doesn’t understand.

 “You crushed his midsection,” he tells her gently. “And sent a rock through his ribs.”

 “I… killed him?” 

  “Yes.”   
  “Oh,” she says. She feels like she should feel… worse. Ashamed. Guilty. Horrified. If anything, though, she feels bad that she doesn’t feel bad. Feels vindicated, in fact, like she’s laid the ghosts of all those poor victims to rest. Skulduggery seems unmoved by her actions, and she supposes, it’s not an unreasonable response to a serial killer monster attacking her, is it?

 “Someone let it out,” Skulduggery says, and there’s that tightness she knows is fury. “I tried to shoot them, who ever they were, but they rounded the corner and then Caelan stepped out.”

 “Serpine’s men?”

 He shakes his head. “They must have been one of ours. Let’s keep this quiet, for now. Just between you and me.”

 “I can manage that,” she says. “ _ If _ you give me a compliment.”

 “You’re bleeding out from your head after killing a serial killer vampire,” he says bemused, turning into the passageway leading to Kenspeckle, “And your main concern is a compliment?” 

 She shrugs. “One track mind, what can I say?”

 “Valkyrie,” he says, “You opened a stone wall after not even three weeks of training and managed to fatally wound a vampire. Suffice to say, you’re extremely impressive and, dare I say, amusing. Good job.”

 (It lacks that softness in his voice when he recited that poetic verse to her, but she accepts the compliment with grace, and lets him all but carry her the rest of the way.)

 

-

 

She dozes off while Kenspeckle painlessly stitches the wound in the back of her head, a blanket over her while she rests.

 Skulduggery sits next to her the entire time; no images of blood chase her, and she feels calmer than she has in days.  

 “Done,” Kenspeckle announces. “You know, my dear,” he tells her, “You don’t have to fight a monster every time you feel like paying me a visit.”

 “I’ll keep that in mind,” Stephanie mumbles. He puts a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from getting up.

 “I’m not letting my one of my favourite patients hurt herself anymore than she already has,” he says.

 “One of your favourites?” Stephanie grins. “Aw.”

 “It’s a very short list,” he admits. “One person, in fact.”

 “You’re sleeping here tonight,” Skulduggery tells her. “Your room is a mess. We’ll move all your things to your new one tomorrow.”

 She’s too sleepy to talk; she nods, worms her way into a more comfortable position.

 “Keep an eye on her,” Kenspeckle says to Skulduggery. “There’s no concussion, but shock can do funny things.”

 “Of course, Professor.”

 She’s on her way to sleep, but she catches Kenspeckles reply:

 “Be careful, Pleasant.”

 And Skulduggery’s response, so quiet she almost misses it: “I’m trying.”

 Kenspeckle says something, but she’s already gone.

 

-

 

If Stephanie dreams, she doesn’t remember it; she wakes up to Skulduggery sitting in the chair next to her. For a moment, she doesn’t know where she is, until the rest of the night returns to her.

 She still doesn’t feel bad. Does she feel bad for not feeling bad, though? Not as much as she should, she suspects, remembering how Caelan, however fucked up, seemed to feel some little shred of remorse. But she doesn’t feel satisfaction either; more like she’s just… done what needed to be done. The blood-fury in her is quiet.

 “Hey,” Stephanie says, slowly sitting up, and Skulduggery turns his head towards her.

 “Tanith wanted me to give you these,” he tells her, reaching beneath his chair. He presents her with a little box of chocolates. Stephanie gasps. She hasn’t seen chocolates since before the Uprising.

 “Where’d she get these?”

 “She’s been saving them for a rainy day,” Skulduggery says. “She says she expects to see ‘Valkyrie the Vampire Killer’ tomorrow, and not to let your new fame get to your head.”

 She laughs, pops a chocolate in her mouth, and sinks into bliss.

 “Before you say anything,” he says quickly, “I did my best not to make it worse when I pulled the vampire out of your wall.”

 “What?” Stephanie says, still in her chocolate daze. He passes her a little mirror from the desk nearby, and she gapes at her reflection.

 An entire section of her hair is missing; mangled ends, from her jaw to her neck, a good ten or fifteen centimeters missing, as if a hairdresser took the phrase  _ just a trim _ far too seriously and then gave up halfway through.

 For a second, she’s horrified, and then, she thinks of Tanith and says, “Cut it off.”

 “Are you sure?”

 “Yes,” she says. “It just gets in the way.”

 He reaches over and takes a pair of scissors from the desk. “I’m not a trained professional,” he warns her, and she waits as he carefully cuts off the hair she’s prized since she was a teenager.

 She watches the strands fall through his fingers, and when he’s done, he passes her the mirror once more.

 “Not bad,” Stephanie admits. She likes the cool air on her neck, how her head feels lighter. He sends a puff of air across her shoulders, and she watches the rest of the hair sink to the ground.

 “It suits you,” he says quietly. She brushes the bits of her hair off the bed, letting this new curtain fall across her face so he can’t see the little blush staining her cheeks. Since when did she start blushing for  _ him _ ?

 “You know,” he says after a moment. “Not a single one of my previous partners has ever managed to kill a vampire.”

 She looks up at him, raising a brow. “I’m not sure whether that makes me impressive, or your partners incompetent.”

 “Why not both?” he suggests. 

 “Wait- we’re partners, now?” she asks, feeling a little tickled pink at the prospect.

 “I’d say so. Bound by blood, and all that,” Skulduggery says. “Just because it isn’t  _ our _ blood doesn’t mean much. Besides, you certainly seem to share my penchant for raising cain.”

 “Cain?”

 “An old expression,” he says. “Meaning trouble.”

 “I don’t know if I can be partners with a walking dictionary,” she tells him. 

 “I’m terribly sorry. I’ll use simpler words from now on.”

 “Much appreciated.”

 “So, my new, impressive partner,” Skulduggery says. “Would you be up for breaking into a centuries old temple, roughing up some evil-doers, and finding the key to saving the world?”

 “Sure,” she grins. “What could possibly go wrong?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER REALLY GOT AWAY FROM ME HAHA sorry for the late update!!!! the next one should be up end of the week.
> 
> I forgot to do this last chapter but i was HEAVILY inspired by tanu-the-avocado's training comics with Valkyrie and Tanith, so please go check them out at her tumblr under the same name!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tanith and Stephanie have a spa day. Anton gets married. Skulduggery sings.
> 
> Thanks as always to Mooncactus's beta-ing! Gd bless...

Of course, they don’t move out the next day; there’s no sudden packing of bags, high-stakes meetings in shadowed rooms, poring over plans. Skulduggery’s explanation for this is as understandable as it is ridiculous.

 “Anton will kill me if we miss his wedding. It’s the day after tomorrow.” 

 “Wait, they’re having the wedding  _ now _ ?” Stephanie says in surprise.

 “No, they’re having it the day after tomorrow.”

 “I thought they  _ just _ got engaged?”

 “They did. And now they’re getting married, keep up. Also, you’re invited. As my plus one.”

 “Uh. Since when?”

 “Since last week.”

 “And this somehow slipped your mind?”

 “Well to be fair, you’re my backup.”

 “And who was your first choice?”

 “Literally anyone else.”

 She smacks him with her free hand, and he laughs.

 They’re walking to her new room, leaden with bags. Skulduggery’s head is behind a pile of clothes, but of course, he doesn’t need sight to lead the way.

 “God, I don’t have anything to wear,” Stephanie realises.

 “The literal pile of clothes in my arms begs to differ.”

 “But they aren’t  _ party _ clothes,” Stephanie says. “They aren’t fit to celebrate someone getting  _ married _ .”

 “Your suit will do just fine.”

 “I can’t wear my day to day suit to a  _ wedding _ .”

 “Of course not. That’s why I have a tuxedo.”

 “Why do you have  _ tuxedo _ ?”

 “I have many suits for many moods.”

 “Oh, really? What’s this one? Painful Pinstripe?”

 “I’m offended,” Skulduggery says, “By your apparent inability to tell fabrics apart.  _ Clearly _ this is Handsome Herringbone.”

 “Horrible Herringbone is more like it,” Stephanie says, and then trips over on a rock and spills her clothes everywhere.

 

-

 

Her room is more or less the same as her previous one, with a few important distinctions; it has a door, and sits among a hallway with several others, each one housing another person within its walls. The most arresting difference, besides the door and the company, is the sigils engraved into the rock around the ceiling, glowing even in the dark.

 Sigils of calling, of locking, of light and warmth and cool; she realises they’re meant to replicate security, heating, and air conditioning systems.

 “China’s idea?” she asks Skulduggery, setting down her bags.

 “Yes. An ingenious one. It’s how the plumbing works in here as well.”

 That sounds... mhm. She decides not to ask about the specifics of what exactly that means.

 “Come over here,” he says, standing next to the door frame, “and put your hand on the cluster there.”

 It’s very detailed, and she can see it has to do with ownership and recognition; she puts her hand over it, and feels with warmth of it, feeling sigils all over the room glow. A sigil on the ceiling glows brightest and stays that way, even when the others fade, much like her own miniature sun. She takes her hand away, and the cluster is replaced with several simple sigils.

 “I won’t bother going through the usual explanation of how this works with you,” he says. “I’m sure you can figure it out yourself. The door will only unlock to your hand, and this cluster here is like the room’s control panel.”

 “Wow. That’s… pretty neat.”

 “It’ll be neater once we get all of this mess sorted,” Skulduggery says, gesturing at the bags sitting on the bed. She sets to hanging her clothes up on the little open wardrobe carved into the rock.

 “It’s like caveman Ikea,” Stephanie says to Skulduggery bemusedly, struck by the oddness of these carefully carved shelves and railings into craggy rock. The cell had had a battered wardrobe, and this is a lot nicer.

 “Neanderthal chic,” Skulduggery agrees. “Also, is that  _ really _ how you plan to organise your shirts?”

 “What’s wrong with it?” she says defensively, and Skulduggery crosses the room to stand next to her. 

 “For a start,” he says, “You should arrange by cut. And then by color.”

 “Wow,” Stephanie says. “Alright.”

 “Clothes make the man,” he says. “And the more organised the man, the better.”

 “Good thing I’m a woman then,” Stephanie says, deliberately placing a floral shirt in amongst two black ones. 

 “You exist purely to torment me,” Skulduggery tells her.

 “I have no idea what you mean,” Stephanie says innocently, and hangs a pair of pants right in the middle of her shirts.

 “I’m afraid I can’t take anymore of this,” Skulduggery says. “I’ll be next door if you need me.”

 “Next door?”

 “In my room,” Skulduggery says, as if that’s a perfectly acceptable explanation. 

 “You have a  _ room _ ?” Stephanie says, squinting, and then a thought occurs to her. “Wait- my room is next to  _ yours _ ?”

 “Much to my eternal displeasure,” Skulduggery says drily. “Apparently this hallway was easier to extend. I used to have a lovely end room with a very quiet mortal next to me. I long for those days already.”

 “Aw,” she says. “You really like me, huh?”

 “‘Like’ is such a strong word…”

 “Are we going to have a sleepover party?” Stephanie grins. “A pillow fight?”

 “I only have one pillow,” Skulduggery says. “I’m not wasting it on  _ you _ .”

 “You wound me, Skulduggery. Here I thought we were bosom buddies. Can I see your room?”

 He sighs. “Do you promise not to hit me with my pillow?”

 “Fine,” she says, and he leads her back into the hallway. The door closes after her, and Skulduggery presses his hand to the door on the right of her; it swings open gently, and sigils in the ceiling glow until they can see inside.

 His room is very similar in layout, but the bed has been replaced with a large alcove, furnished with a single, very large cushion.

 “That’s where I meditate,” he says in answer to her questioning glance.

 The rest of the room is taken up with a large bookcase and an imposing desk covered in paper and writing, perfectly neat and organised. The main wall is carved out and filled with literally dozens of suits, and they attract attention in the same way a water feature might; the glowing sigils in the ceiling providing a gentle but distracting illumination that highlights them.

 “That’s a lot of suits,” she says, perhaps superfluously. “A lot of very similar looking suits.”

 He looks at her.

 “What?” she says. “They’re all the same.”

 “You come into my room, you insult my suits…”

 But she’s ignoring him, her eyes scanning over his bookshelf now, and they alight upon a very familiar collection of novels.

 “Is that  _ Brain Muncher _ ?” Stephanie says in surprise, looking at the titles.  _ Brain Muncher… Caterpillar… The Coward Corporal Fleece _ …

 “I thought Gordon would appreciate his stories surviving the apocalypse,” Skulduggery says. “I tried to save the original script of  _ The Darkness Rained Upon Them _ while I was searching his estate for clues on the Sceptre but Serpine had other ideas.”

 Though she has long healed from the childhood sadness of her beloved uncle’s death, it still saddens her in a quiet way, much like her mother’s death; a scar long healed that aches when the weather changes.

 “He was a good man, your uncle,” Skulduggery muses. “A good friend. He loved you very much, you know.”

 “Yeah, I know. He left his entire house to me, remember?” Stephanie grins. “I should be a rich woman by now.”

 “Maybe after we overthrow Serpine, you can cash in the royalties.”

 “You sound pretty confident this whole overthrowing an empire thing is going to work,” Stephanie says, pulling out  _ Brain Muncher _ and looking at the lurid cover. 

 “I’ve already died once,” Skulduggery says. “If it means I have to take Serpine with me, then I’m not afraid to do it again.”

 “Well,  _ I _ don’t want to die,” Stephanie says.

 “You’re too pretty and smart to die,” Skulduggery says dismissively. “Besides, I’ll be there.”

 “Fat lot of good that will be if you’re dead,” she mutters, putting the book back.

 

-

 

That evening, a knock on her door; Stephanie presses her hand to it, and it opens up and there’s Tanith, grinning, a sizeable bowl of freshly fried chips in hand.

 “There’s my favourite vampire hunter,” she says cheerfully. Stephanie lets her in and she takes a seat on her bed. “Nice digs. I’m just down the hallway on your left. We can go get dinner together!”

 “We probably won’t be able to until I get back,” Stephanie says.

 “Yeah, Skulduggery told me.” Tanith munches thoughtfully on a handful of chips. “Are you going to the wedding, at least?”

 “Mhm.” she takes a seat next to Tanith, taking a handful of steaming potato for herself. “Skulduggery says Anton will be pretty unimpressed if we aren’t there for it.”

 “That’s fair enough. You gotta take the joy when you can, these days. Ghastly invited me as his plus one, which is nice. You and I can stand together awkwardly.”

 “Ooh,” Stephanie teases, wriggling her eyebrows. “Someone’s got an admirer.”

 Tanith laughs. “He’s cute and makes nice clothes, and there’s going to be  _ wine  _ at this thing, Val. You know how long it’s been since I had wine?’

 “A while, I’m guessing?”

 “Two years.”

 “That’s… not as long as I was expecting.”

 “It is when you were trying to work as an Arbiter in London,” Tanith says. “You guys have it good over here. Your base isn’t in the capital city… you have all this space… In London it was me, Frightening Jones -ex-boyfriend of mine and a damned good fighter- and about twenty mortals we were trying to smuggle out to Wales, all stuck in a three bedroom apartment on the west side. A fucking  _ nightmare _ .”

  “What brought you here anyway?” Stephanie says, wriggling her cold toes. She gets up to touch the sigil for heating, holding it until it glows steady, and the room instantly warms up.

 “Well, once we got those mortals out of town, we got a message from Saracen, telling us they finally got some intel from their spies in Dublin. So Mr. Bliss -China’s brother, been helping us over in England for a few years now- sent me over, and Donegan Bane -great guy, hopefully once this is all over you’ll meet him and his boyfriend, Gracious- took over my end. And here I am.” She pauses to munch on some chips. “In between training you and other sorcerers, I’ve been helping conduct raids, rescue some of the mortals from the settlements closer to Dublin. We’re trying to save as many people as we can before we make our move on Serpine’s fortress there; it’s going to be an all out war, and it’ll be hard enough to tell friend from foe when it happens.”

 “What if we lose, though?” Stephanie asks, trying not to act shocked at the thought China has a sibling, because that means by extension at some point China was a child, and that’s just… uncomfortable. 

 Tanith shrugs. “I’m a winner, Val. I don’t lose. But if it makes you feel better, we’ll all probably die a very quick, very messy, and very  _ painful _ death.”

 

-

 

“So you really think the Necromancer’s Temple will hold a clue to how the Gateway is going to work?” Corrival says a little dubiously, looking at the two of them.

 “I don’t know anything about the Temple,” Stephanie shrugs, pulling open the plans to show him the fruitbowl sigil. “But this sigil is one of the main blocks in the chain that directs the magic for it. Whatever it’s doing is important, and without knowing what it means…”

 “I’ve definitely seen this sigil in Necromancer lore,” Skulduggery confirms. “With China’s library long gone, the Temple is the next best thing.”

 They’re sitting around that rough stone table in the sun-lit room, Stephanie and all the Dead Men.

 “Valkyrie,” Corrival says gently to her. “Are you sure you want to go? This is going to be a serious operation. Skulduggery could go without you. He knows what he’s looking for.”

 “No offense to Skulduggery,” Stephanie says, and Saracen laughs. “But I think it’s best I see whatever information there is about the sigil myself.”

 “Valkyrie has come a very long way since she arrived here,” Erskine says; Stephanie blinks in surprise at his earnest expression. “I saw what she did to the vampire. That took innate talent and strength a lot of people, sorcerer or otherwise, don’t have.”

 “Tanith and I can confirm this, of course,” Skulduggery says to Corrival. “And in any case, if this all goes according to plan, there won’t be any  _ need  _ for combat.”

 “Somehow,” Corrival says, “I find that very hard to believe.”

 “I can come with you guys,” Dexter suggests. “Extra muscle.”

 “No,” Skulduggery says. “The smaller the team, the better. You’re a lot more recognisable than either of us, Dexter.”

 “It’s true,” Dexter says sadly. “Everyone knows this handsome mug.”

 “What’s your timeframe for this?” Erskine asks calmly. 

 “The day after Anton’s wedding,” Skulduggery replies, and Anton dips his head graciously. “We should be in and out within four days,” Skulduggery continues. “Maximum seven, depending on patrols and how long it takes to stake out the Temple. In an ideal situation, not only do we find information on the sigil, but we also find whatever allows Serpine’s Teleporters to move about without triggering the sigil alarms and bring it back.”

 “Alright,” Corrival says eventually. “It seems like you’ve both got this under control.”

 “Great,” Saracen says cheerfully. “Now, more importantly- what are we all wearing to the party?”

 

-

 

The papers are covered with blood; she grimaces as she unfurls the plans, trying to reorganise them, setting her workspace back up, and chips away a thick dollop of it off the top of her book. 

 Her little list of questions is unreadable, blood smeared all over them, so she crinkles them into a ball. The plans themselves, though- much to Skulduggery’s relief- are still legible.

 She runs a hand through her hair at the sight of them, momentarily confused by the shortness of it, thick and choppy between her fingers.  Though the sigil will be a large piece of the puzzle, it’s not the only one, so she chews on the pencil she’s been given and gets back to note-taking.

 So, there’s: the Necromancer fruit bowl; the grounding signs; various sigils that act simply to direct magic in specific, albeit complex ways. She takes out the magnifying glass Skulduggery gave her during the move into this room, a tool he casually put on her desk along with a battered pair of callipers. 

 While the main blocks of the chain are important, in the meantime, she can at least now have a proper look at the nuance of them, the tiny sigils she could barely make out before.

 She pores over it for an hour or so, noting down certain sigils on her paper to look up in the sigil dictionary later.

 There’s a strangely familiar one that shows up in all the blocks that have magic redirection as their focus; a rounded rectangle with two strokes through the middle and a flick bisecting the bottom right corner. It takes her a few seconds to place it until she sees it in a combination she’s Carved a few times- on sigil handcuffs. It’s one of the many sigils that can be used in several different contexts, but the general gist of it is its signifier of a body.

 When on handcuffs, it relates to the flow of magic being disrupted, as it does in this familiar combination. But the next sigil in the line turns this disruption into a redirection- and then she squints, because there’s the Necromancer fruit bowl once more, making it the object of this redirection. But this sigil can’t be used to signify the Gateway itself, because the Gateway is referred to countless times, the sigil a simple square.

 Great. Another mystery. Stephanie grumbles and mutters and checks the rest of the sigils she’s noted down; they all serve to only accentuate how important this damn fruit bowl is when they’re referring back to it.

_Stupid Necromancers_ , Stephanie thinks, and goes to bed in a huff.

 

-

 

The day of the wedding dawns; Skulduggery ducks his head in the next morning to apologise for his absence across the day while he helps them set up, so Stephanie has to make her first journey to the food hall by herself, feeling a little awkward but too hungry to care, following the directions he’s given her.

 It’s not unlike the hall back at Haggard, except, of course, more cheerful. And with better food.

 She joins the line, takes her plate of fresh, steaming scrambled eggs and bacon, and goes and finds a seat among the literal hundreds. The hall is immense; several kitchens line the walls, and there’s so many tables she’s even estimate the number.

 She’s extremely thankful when Tanith catches her eye, waves her over.

 “This place is ridiculous,” Stephanie says. “I can’t even remember which exit I came in. Is literally  _ everyone _ in the caves here?”

 “Nah,” Tanith says, dunking her toast in her egg. “They have the morning intake staggered- so our section is third or fourth- and every half hour the next section of rooms comes in. It’s an ongoing thing until people go to bed, basically.”

 “Jesus  _ Christ _ ,” Stephanie mutters, craning her head. “How many cooks are there do you reckon?”

 “Hundreds,” Tanith replies. “It’s shift work. Everyone takes turns. Lunch and dinner is much lighter of course, since people like to head to the food district, but yeah. It’s an immense operation.”

 “What are you going to train me in today?” Stephanie asks. 

 “No training today,” Tanith tells her, grinning. “We’re going to have a spa day.”

 “There’s a spa?”

 “We can braid each other's hair… talk about boys…”

 “Good God.”

 “And I also have a bottle of whiskey I’ve been hoarding for half a decade,” Tanith says in a dramatic whisper.

 “That’s more like it,” Stephanie says approvingly.

 “I need to go pick up the dress Ghastly’s made me,” Tanith says. “You can get yours too, while you’re at it.”

 Stephanie blinks. “What? For the wedding?”

 “Yeah. Apparently he has some spare fabric he can’t use for armoured clothes, so… and I might have flirted with him a little.”

 “Tanith,” Stephanie says disapprovingly, but ruins her straight face with a laugh. “Cheers, though. I haven’t worn a dress for… Christ, a  _ long _ time.”

 “Oh, he was already making yours. And it’s not leading him on if I’m  _ interested _ ,” Tanith protests. “Why was he already making me a dress?” Stephanie says in confusion.

“No clue,” Tanith shrugs, scraping the last little bit of egg from her plate. “Right, lets go.”

 “Now?”

 “Ghastly has his breakfast earlier than us. Might as well go brighten up his morning.” Tanith pauses. “Don’t look now, but that girl over there is staring at you.”

 “What can I say? I’m a head turner,” Stephanie says dryly, but she casually turns her head as if to stretch her neck, and-

 It’s Alex. Alex looking back at her, Alex with bright eyes and that country bumpkin smile, and Stephanie's mouth falls open.

 “I’ll be right back,” she says to Tanith, and stands up, walks over to her. The younger girl gets up with a smile and Stephanie finds herself wrapped in a hug before she realises it.

 “You’re alive,” she says dumbly, and Alex laughs.

 “Yeah, but what are you doing here?”

 “I punched a Captain,” Stephanie says, and Alex looks at her in awe. She preens a little. “What happened to  _ you _ ?”

 “I couldn’t sleep, so I went out for a walk and one of the new sorcerers, I think her name was Kitana?-” here Stephanie grimaces, because Kitana had been getting a reputation for cruelty before she left- “She found me and… well, she attacked me. And this really handsome guy came out of nowhere and  _ saved _ me. Dexter, I think his name was. He said he was staking out Haggard for mortals at risk and he took me here…” Alex’s smile suddenly gets a little teary, and Stephanie finds herself patting the younger girl on the shoulder. “It’s really nice to see you, Valkyrie. I have friends here but it’s nice to see a familiar face.”

 “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” Stephanie pauses, and says, a little awkwardly, “I’m sorry I was short with you sometimes, Alex.”

 “It’s okay. I know I was a little much.”

 “I’m glad you’re alive, though,” Stephanie offers. “You got out at a good time.”

 “You’ll have to tell me all about it,” Alex says brightly.

 “I’m going to be… not around for a few weeks. But when I get back- sure.” Before Alex can ask where she’s going, Stephanie says hastily, “I need to go, but I’ll see you around, right?”

 “Yeah! See you!”

 Stephanie hastily joins Tanith who is waiting for her.

 “A girl from my town,” she says by way of explanation. “I thought she was dead.” 

 “Happens all the time,” Tanith says breezily.

 

-

 

Tanith steps out in a strapless red fishtail dress and Stephanie whistles.

 “Good?” she asks, twirling. Ghastly, who is pretending to be busy at his desk with what looks like a bomber jacket, is blushing. “Just joking. I look fucking fantastic.”

 It fits tight, draping elegantly, and makes her arms look like they’re sculpted marble. But more than that; it feels like they could be at a clothing store, in another life, in a world where this is an achievable luxury. Something about it makes Stephanie joyous.

 “If my dress looks half as good as that,” Stephanie says to Ghastly, “I’ll be over the moon.”

 “Well go and try yours on,” he suggests, motions to a mass of black fabric hanging over the second change room door.

 She shrugs out of her suit, and pulls on the dress. It’s long-sleeved, high necked, with a dip in the back that stops just above the swell of her hips, covered in ever darker black floral embroidery. And of course, it fits perfectly; it doesn’t move at all, even though the shoulders should be falling down, and when she looks at herself in the mirror, those arms stronger than ever and her hair sitting along her jaw, she feels beautiful, feels that emotion again- nostalgia, she realises. Nostalgia for what she would never have. 

 And perhaps, resolve. If she can help the Arbiters, perhaps other people might have this again too.

-

 

They spend the day chatting and laughing. Tanith tells Stephanie about her past as a glorified bounty hunter for the English Sanctuary, and Stephanie tells Tanith about the mansion she never got to inherit-

 “Your uncle was  _ Gordon Edgley?” _ Tanith interrupts her.

 “Yes?”

 “He was my favourite author!” Tanith exclaims. “Oh my God. What was he like?”

 Stephanie squints as she tries to remember. “Balding. And he liked making faces at me. He was a good uncle.”

 “I was devastated when I heard he had passed away,” Tanith says sadly. “I would have loved to have met him.”

 “You could have been the big sister I never had,” Stephanie laughs. 

 “Hmm. I always wanted a little sister I could boss around.”

 “Really?”

 “No.”

 Stephanie laughs and Tanith leans over the edge of her bed, and pulls out a dark bottle. 

 “Have you ever had alcohol?” she asks Stephanie.

 “A few times,” she admits. “But it tasted like shit.”

 “Ah. Best only have a bit then.”

 She takes a swig, and then passes it to Stephanie, who takes a hesitant mouthful and almost coughs it all up when the taste burns down her throat.

 “Don’t follow  _ my  _ example,” Tanith laughs. “Just have a sip.”

 “Thanks for the warning,” Stephanie mutters, eyes watering, and tries a hesitant sip.

 This is much more palatable; the taste is warm, almost evaporating off her, tongue, and there’s a note of sweetness to it- caramel, she realises, a taste she hasn’t had in so long it feels like a foreign delicacy.

 “Not bad,” she concedes, and Tanith takes the bottle back off her; by the time it comes for them to get ready, Tanith is flushed and grinning. Stephanie, who has had markedly less, is only a little unsteady. 

 They part to get ready. Stephanie has a luxurious shower, combs her hair out, and there’s a knock on her door as she’s doing the side zipper up of the dress, marvelling again at Ghastly’s talent.

 “Here,” Tanith says, holding out a pair of sturdy but still lovely black heels.

 “Where did you get  _ heels _ ?”

 Tanith grins and just offers them to her, and Stephanie pulls them on. They’re a little snug, but bearable, and then she all but gapes when Tanith holds out a little pot of red rouge.

 “Us girls have to stick together,” is all Tanith will say, dabbing it onto her lips, and Stephanie follows suit; in the mirror, they look absolutely stunning, and Stephanie feels childishly like a princess.

-

 

They arrive at the large room in which the ceremony and reception is being held, full of chattering sorcerers and mortals, intermingling a little awkwardly, but freely, and there’s soft jazz standards playing from a battered record player performing well beyond its capabilities. Soft candle light everywhere, and smiling faces. It feels like a world apart.

 “Ladies,” Dexter says, sidling up next to them as they take a glass of wine. “Looking lovely, as per usual.”

 “Thank you,” Stephanie says graciously. “You look alright, I guess.”

 He looks very handsome, in a sleek tuxedo, his hair combed off his forehead, but of course she isn’t going to give him the satisfaction. A man she doesn’t recognise, perhaps of Indian descent, with a strong nose and high cheekbones, comes to them with a glass of wine and says in a deep, smooth voice, “Dexter, what did Anton tell you?”

 “Not to be a shameless flirt for once in my life,” Dexter sighs. “Fine. I guess I’ll just have to go harass Saracen.”

 “Try to indulge Anton. It’s his wedding, after all,” Skulduggery says, and turns to them. He opens his mouth when he looks at Stephanie, then closes it, and turns to Tanith. “Tanith, you look lovely.”

 “You’re absolutely correct,” Tanith agrees happily, and takes a gulp of wine. He looks at Stephanie again and very conspicuously doesn’t say anything, and Skulduggery is looking up at the ceiling.

 “Hey Dexter,” Tanith says suddenly, “Isn’t that- that guy?”

 “What-” Dexter says, confused, and Tanith elbows him. Wheezing he says, “Oh-  _ that _ guy. Let’s go say hi. Right now.”

The two of them abruptly leave. 

 “What about me?” Stephanie prods.

 “What about you?” Skulduggery replies, straightening the cuff of his impeccable tuxedo.

 “How do  _ I _ look?” she says pointedly. 

 “Passable,” he says eventually, and she glares at him. 

 “ _ Passable? _ ”

 Skulduggery looks away and is that a  _ blush _ ? 

 “You think I look  _ fantastic _ ,” she crows.

 He shrugs. “I think a lot of things about you,” he says neutrally, turning away a little.

 “Oh really?” She says, and steps into his space, hands on her hips. “ Like what?” 

 She meets his eyes, an unfamiliar expression in them, and it’s with a start that she realises she wishes he wasn’t wearing his facade.

 “Oh, this and that,” he murmurs, and then Ghastly is by his side, holding a dark blue bowtie in his free hand.

 “You look lovely, Valkyrie,” Ghastly says, toasting her with his glass. He looks, much she feels, pleasantly untidy.

 “Thank you again for making it,” she says sincerely, taking her first sip of the champagne in her glass. She’s never had champagne before, and she doesn’t quite know if she likes the taste, but it’s cool and fizzy and refreshing in the warmth of the room.

 “Thank Skulduggery,” Ghastly says cheerfully. “He’s the one who asked me to make it for you. Oh, there’s Fletcher, I told him I’d give him this bowtie-” he disappears back into the crowd.

 Stephanie stares at Skulduggery, who seems very interested all of a sudden in her shoes. She’s unsure what to say, but she finds she’s smiling.

 “You didn’t have anything to wear,” he says eventually, voice quiet and tinged with a fond sort of annoyance.

 “In your own words,” she says, “the literal pile of clothes in your arms begged to differ.” But the phrase lacks bite, the whiskey softening her tongue (nothing else, just the alcohol, she thinks) and she can feel herself smiling at him. Someone bumps into her as they pass with an armful of drinks, sends her into his chest. Skulduggery, quite automatically, reaches out to steady her, and then flinches from her like she’s stung him, and then Tanith is there, chattering, just as someone sidles up and takes Skulduggery’s attention in a conversation. The two of them part, but Stephanie finds herself glancing back at Skulduggery until it comes time for the ceremony, and she catches his gaze more than once.

 Tanith and Stephanie sit together in the aisle second from the front, in crude chairs, both now heading towards buzzed as Cassandra, who is sitting just off to the side, takes out a battered guitar and strums the wedding march.

 The two grooms’ parties stand on either side of a crudely fashioned arch covered in glowing sigils. One on side is Anton’s partner’s friends- Tanith whispers his name to her, Samuel- and on the other side stand the Dead Men, minus Corrival who stands in the middle, clearly replacing the reverend.

 Anton and Bernard walk down the aisle, hand in hand; Anton wears a charcoal tuxedo that sets off his piercing eyes, and Bernard wears a cream tuxedo that somehow makes his dark skin seem to glow. They both look utterly fantastic. Bernard beams widely; Anton has the tiniest smile that somehow seems to light up the room.

 They come to the makeshift altar and stand opposite one another, still holding hands.

 “Friends and family,” Corrival begins, looking proudly over the audience. “In these hard times, it’s not often we get the chance to celebrate. Even less, do we get the honor of being witness to the start of a loving marriage. So, it is with the greatest honor that I welcome you to the wedding of Anton Shudder and Bernard Matthews.”

 He pauses, becauses almost every person in the crowd is cheering and clapping, and Stephanie finds herself laughing; Tanith puts her fingers to her mouth and makes a keening wolf whistle that rings out across the crowd.

 Once everyone settles down, Corrival clears his throat and resumes speaking. He goes into standard wedding territory, and since Stephanie doesn’t have much of an emotional tie to Anton (and definitely not Samuel), her attention wanders across the room. She recognises a few people from her lunches and dinners in the market area, but she couldn’t say who were mortals and who were sorcerers, and that’s a surprisingly nice thought, that the future could be like this.

 She looks up at the altar. Samuel is reading out his vows, which are nice if not a little generic. She can see Dexter murmur something into Saracen’s ear, and the two of them smirk at each other. Ghastly subtly elbows Dexter, who elbows him back, and then Skulduggery gives them all a Look and they stop immediately. Stephanie grins, and turns her attention back to Anton and Samuel as they slide their wedding rings on each other’s fingers.

 “I now pronounce you husband and husband,” Corrival smiles, and Stephanie can see he’s a little teary. “You may now kiss your husband.”

 So they do, passionately; the room erupts with cheers, of course, and it takes a good five minutes before everyone is quiet enough for Corrival to conclude the ceremony.   

 

-

 

It turns out that sorcerers, after living a long time,  _ really _ know how to throw a party. There’s lots of food, lots of wine, and Erskine and a woman Stephanie doesn’t recognise team up with Cassandra to form a rough three piece band; Erskine with an upturned bucket and two sticks to act as a drum, and the woman with, of all things, a dented trumpet. Their first few songs are rough covers of eighties hits she barely remembers, and then they get in the swing of it and soon, the center of the room is crowded with drunk people dancing.

 Stephanie, who is not much of a dancer, elects to sit a little ways off; she enjoys the fruity wine Dexter had fobbed off onto her, and the hot food, and watches Tanith pull some ridiculously sick moves on the dance floor as Ghastly looks on in clear and helpless admiration. Skulduggery is nowhere to be seen, and an hour or two passes like this, washing over her with the wine, unexpectedly pleasant and melancholy, somehow.

   “Hey,” someone says, and she looks up from her mini sausage roll. Fletcher stands over her, looking uncomfortable in a suit that looks too good to be anything other than Ghastly’s work. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

 His tone is quiet, and she swallows her desire to be rude. It’s a wedding. She should be nice. And she’s a little drunk.

 “Sure,” she shrugs.

 They both sit for a bit, watching as Corrival busts out a good old fashioned sprinkler and Tanith doubles over in laughter, slapping her knee.

 “I’ve never been to a wedding,” Fletcher says, watching them without expression.

 “Me either,” she says, taking another sip of wine. 

 “It feels… weird,” he says. “I mean, it kinda feels… escapist.”

 “This entire place is escapist by definition,” she points out, annoyance creeping up on her at his defeated tone. “Besides, a wedding isn’t escapist. It’s  _ nice. _ ”

 “It is, though,” Fletcher says, and when she sees how he’s slouching, cheeks red, she realises he’s drunk. More drunk than she is. “Doesn’t it bother you? How everyone acts like everything is going to be fine, as if Serpine is going to just roll over and give up his throne? They lost the war. It’s over. Serpine won.”

 “Seriously?” Stephanie says, looking at him. “You really want to talk about this at a celebration of love and commitment?”

 “Ghastly told me you’re going into Dublin,” Fletcher says, and looks at her. He looks exhausted. “I know we got off on the wrong foot, but you need to listen to me. This whole plan? It won’t work. You’ll get captured, and you’ll die.”

 “Holy shit,” Stephanie mutters, drains her drink, stands up. “See you around, Fletcher.”

 He grabs her wrist and she wrenches it from him, glaring daggers so sharp she’s almost surprised he doesn’t bleed. He holds his hands up apologetically.

 “You and I, all the mortals here, this isn’t our responsibility,” he says, and the anger in his tone- while not directed at her- is the last straw.

 “I’m going into Dublin because it’s the right thing to do,” she tells him. “Yeah, it’s bullshit I have to fight in a war I had nothing to do with. But sitting around in my room with my head up my ass isn’t going to do anything either.”

 Stephanie leaves him there, the wine hitting her as she walks away. Where the hell is Skulduggery? She wants to complain. He’s good to complain to.

 The song finishes as she pushes through the crowd, and then there’s Tanith, wiping sweat from her forehead, pulling her onto the floor.

 “Have you seen Skulduggery?” she says to her through the crowd’s chatter.

 “What?” Tanith asks, leaning in. Stephanie repeats the question, but before Tanith can answer, the next song starts up- one she  _ does  _ recognise, because Gordon played it at his last birthday party and got roaringly drunk and fell over, breaking a lamp in the process. Someone starts singing, a deep, smooth voice she squints at.

 “ _ Oh what a night _ ,” someone sings, a deep, smooth voice, and Tanith yells in disbelief as they both look to where Cassandra’s little band stands to see Skulduggery, voice magnified by what Stephanie recognises as a sigil powered microphone. 

 “Holy  _ fuck _ ,” Stephanie hears Dexter shout gleefully.

 “ _ You know, I didn't even know her name, _ ” Skulduggery continues, that deep voice nostalgic and warm, “ _ But I was never gonna be the same. What a lady, what a night.” _

 The wine is properly kicking in now, and her indifference to dancing falls away as her and Tanith get their groove on; at some point, Dexter and Saracen join them, and they all laugh and yell like idiots as the ragtag band and their unexpected singer continue.

 “ _ Oh what a night, _ ” Skulduggery continues, the song wrapping up. “ _ Oh what a night. _ ”

 There’s thunderous applause, and someone yells out a request for more; Skulduggery sings request after request, and the night begins to slow down, until he says, somewhat regretfully, “I’m afraid, ladies and gentleman, that this is to be my last song for the night.”

Dexter boos, and Saracen claps a hand over his mouth, and yelps when Dexter bites it.

“This song is a request from the men of the hour themselves,” Skulduggery continues, and Cassandra begins strumming slow and sweet, and the woman blows her horn soft and mellow, and most of the audience begins to split into couples; Saracen pulls Dexter to him, and Tanith and Ghastly hesitantly step into an embrace and Stephanie just stands there, swaying in time.

 Skulduggery pauses, and then:

_ “At last… my love has come along, _ ” he sings. “ _ My lonely days are over, and life is like a song.” _

__ His eyes meet Stephanie’s and she stands still amongst the people moving around her, unable to look away as his voice wraps around her. She blames it on the alcohol, but it feels like it’s just the two of them; that he’s singing to her and her alone, and she doesn’t know- what  _ is this- _

 Skulduggery looks away from her, and it’s like she can breathe again.

 “ _ You smiled, you smiled, oh- and then the spell was cast, _ ” he says, looking out into the audience.  _ “And here we are in Heaven, for you are mine at last.” _

 She can’t take her eyes off him until he finishes the song, and disappears into the crowd.

 

-

 

Stephanie drinks more than she strictly should; she has a vague memory of Dexter and Saracen furiously making out, of Tanith and Ghastly sitting close and talking, smiling, and then she’s at her door, her hand grasping a bony arm and her knees feeling a little weak.

 “If you have a hangover when we leave tomorrow,” Skulduggery says, “It’s your own fault.”

 “You’re  _ worried _ about me,” she says gleefully, wagging her finger at him, almost hitting his nose. He pushes it away gently. 

 “I’m worried about our mission,” he corrects her, and she sees the corner of his mouth turning up.

 “You’re smiling,” she says, and the walls spin a little as she reaches out to open her door. “Woof. I… drank too much.”

 “Not as much as Dexter,” Skulduggery mutters. She places her hand on the door and realises she’s put it in the wrong spot, and slaps the wood ineffectually two or three times before Skulduggery, with an exaggerated sigh, gently takes her wrist and presses it to the right place.

 “Thank you,” Stephanie says with a hiccup, and he walks her in. She throws herself down on the bed, and says regally, “I shall sleep like this tonight.”

 “Dear me,” Skulduggery says. “You’re going to be delightful tomorrow.”

 “You’re always so rude,” she protests. “Why are you so rude?”

 Declining to answer her, he picks up the glass on her desk, disappears for a moment into the bathroom and comes out with it full of water.

 “Drink this,” he tells her. She does. Well, half of it; the other half ends up on her shirt.

 “Oops,” she says cheerfully, and laughs when he pulls the spillage off of her torso with a flick of his fingers; the water dissipates into the air. “Skulduggery?”

 “Yes?”

 She wriggles her feet in the air, and the hem of her dress slides to her knees. “Can you take my shoes off?”

 Skulduggery looks away. “You must be joking.”

 “Please? I’m all the way up here. And my feet are all the way down there.” She bats her eyelashes at him, and yelps when her shoes slide off of their own accord and are gently placed right side up by her desk.

 “You cheated!”

 “Alright,” Skulduggery says firmly. “Under the quilt you get.”

 “But I’m in my  _ dress _ ,” Stephanie complains.

 “That sounds like a  _ you _ problem,” Skulduggery says. She pouts, and pulls the covers out from under herself, climbing beneath them and pulling them out. Her chin sticks out over the covers and she glares at him.

 “I feel like an idiot,” she says, and laughs.

 “You look like one, if it helps,” he replies, and there’s that small, secret little smile again.

 “You never told me what you think about me,” Stephanie tells him.

 “A gentleman never tells,” Skulduggery says, tidying up her desk.

 “That’s only about kisses,” she says, and then gasps dramatically. “Does that mean you think about kissing me?”

 He goes stock still, to her surprise, and through her drunken haze, she thinks,  _ only a guilty man would look like that _ , but the thought is gone before she can hang onto it, lost to the night.

 “Speaking of kissing,” she says recklessly, “Did Dexter and Saracen make out or was that just all the wine?”

 “No, you saw correctly,” he says, and she looks on from her warm little quilt cocoon as he stacks some notes. “They’ve been the Rachel and Ross of the Dead Men as long as I can remember.”

 “You mean like… will they, won’t they?”

 “No,” Skulduggery says, reangling her sigil books. “As in, they’re terrible for each other and have the inability to talk about their feelings meaningfully and have a healthy relationship or let the past stay in the past where it belongs.”

 “Romantic,” Stephanie jokes. 

 “We used to have a running bet on how long it would be before they turned up hungover and married,” Skulduggery continues, hanging up her discarded t-shirt. “Tomorrow may just be Ghastly’s lucky day.” He steps back and surveys her now tidy room and glances at her.

 “I’ll be next door if you start throwing up,” Skulduggery tells her.

 “Gross.”

 “Good night, Valkyrie.”

 “Good night, Skulduggery,” Stephanie says, and he offers her a smile before he closes the door shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhh sorry for the late update guys!! and thanks for the comments and love like always. next chapter, we get back into the Plot!!
> 
> For those interested, this is how I envision the acoustic guitar cover of the wedding march: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucMu8KNGc0M
> 
> FYI, Skulduggery is singing "December 1963 (Oh what a night)" by Frankie Valli, and then "At Last" by Etta James.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skulduggery isn't a very good detective. Stephanie has an uncomfortable realization. An unwelcome face makes a reappearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Mooncactus for the beta!

“It’s fucking _cold_ ,” Stephanie says, gritting her teeth through the wailing winds and her throbbing headache.

“I’m very comfortable,” Skulduggery says cheerfully.

“You don’t have skin,” she says grumpily.

 They’re making their way back to to the Circuit, planning to teleport straight onto the outskirts of Serpine’s Dublin, a newly installed Teleportation Circuit that Skulduggery says is well overdue. According to Skulduggery, they’ll come out under a bridge in Ronanstown, near the train line Serpine uses for shuttling supplies across the country.

 But right now, they’re still hiking through Ballycroy National Park, and Stephanie has a hangover only exacerbated by the cold that makes her teeth ache; winter has well and truly begun. While her suit and coat keep her warm, her fingers and exposed face are subject to the elements, and she feels like _shit._

 “I shouldn’t have had anything to drink,” she bemoans.

 “You didn’t even drink that _much_ ,” Skulduggery tells her, waiting for her as they come to a little cliff. “I’d say about ten standard serves, if that.”

 “Ten standard serves is a lot! And how would you know, you _can’t_ drink.”

 “I _could_ drink,” he tells her, as she comes to his side.

 “Oh, really? Wouldn’t it just go through your ribcage?”

 “I didn’t say it would be worthwhile,” he says, and they both peer over the edge. The cliff is sheer, and while Stephanie fancies she could pull out handholes from the rock, she isn’t confident enough to risk it.

 “Guess we’re going around,” she shrugs.

 “May I?” he asks, extending his arm. The facade he’s wearing has a hooked nose, and a sharp chin. In combination with the gesture he looks, unfathomably, like a Regency gentleman.

 “May you what?”

 “I can get us both down, but it requires me holding you.”

 She blinks, and then grins. “If you wanted a hug, you could have just _asked_. Go on then.”

 He rolls his dark eyes, but the way he reaches out to her is hesitant, gentle; his arm slides around her waist and locks her to his side. Something drops hot and heavy into her stomach, and Stephanie coughs.

 “So,” she says. “Now what?”

 “I’m going to walk off us off the cliff and slow our descent with the air. Please do _not_ scream.”

 “Please do _not_ drop me.”

 “I would never,” he says, tilting his head, and they step off together. She clings to him as they drift to the ground, air solid beneath her shoes like an elevator’s floor. His clothes, usually structured to give the illusion of muscle mass, depress beneath her touch, and she’s surprisingly comforted by the cool boniness of him. When the ground is sturdy beneath them, Skulduggery lets her go immediately and starts walking; the abruptness of it takes her by surprise, and she falters before a few seconds before hurrying after him.

 

-

 

For the most part, they keep quiet, especially after they pass the sigil clusters enclosing the Sanctuary. The entire time, something feels strange, like she’s walking funny. It’s only when they stop for her to pee behind a tree and she gets some dirt in her sock that she realises it’s because she can sense the earth around her, much looser and pliable than the stone enclosure of the Sanctuary.

 She mentions this to Skulduggery. He tilts his head and thoughtfully says, “How far can you feel?”

 Stephanie reaches out with her magic, lifting her hands; it’s a vague, nebulous sensation that seems to halt with the ridges of rock on her left that emerge from the earth.

 “Not very far,” she says. “About twenty meters? It’s not like… every rock and grain of dirt, though.”

 “We can add that to your list of strengths, then,” Skulduggery says, and he starts quizzing her as they walk, moving things and seeing if she can feel them, trying to broaden her range and narrow it.

 They come to the Circuit in the late evening, and Skulduggery stops her from stepping on it.

 “Before we do this,” he says. “We need to lay some ground rules.”

 “Like?”

 “Dublin and its surrounding areas are _swarming_ with Cleavers. Getting to the Temple is going to require finesse and patience, and, well..”

 “I have finesse,” she protests.

 “You need to listen to me every step of the way. If I tell you to be quiet, you need to be quiet. If I tell you to run, you need to run. Do you understand?”

 His voice isn’t unkind, but it’s deadly serious, and she nods.

 “I can not stress enough how careful we need to be. This is your last chance to back out.”.

 “I’m not hiking all the way back,” she says, and they stare at each other for a moment. He nods, and steps onto the Circuit; she joins him. He presses a spot on his arm, and then, suddenly, the forest vanishes behind them, and then they’re beneath a bridge with water rushing alongside them. Stephanie immediately throws up into the river.

 “Great start to the mission,” she mutters, and goes to cup her hands in the flowing water to wash her mouth out. Skulduggery stops her.

 “That’s grey water,” he advises her, and she grimaces- at that she almost put it in her mouth, and at the sour taste of vomit on her tongue.

 It’s night, and not a single street light shines overhead. Skulduggery puts his gloved finger to his lips, and they make their way up into the trainyard.

 It’s spooky as hell, there’s no other way to put it; seeing all these empty mortal trains, abandoned in favour of sorcerous compartments. A liminal space, a graveyard of metal corpses. They move quiet and careful, and with only the moon lighting the way, Stephanie finds herself heavily reliant on her sense of the rock and dirt around them.

  It’s a strange thing, feeling her feet press into dirt and the dirt being pressed, but she grows used to it, feeling the impact snake out from her foot, feels the iron rails snaking through the earth. She realises that Skulduggery is somehow negating his own movements, and that thought is a little aweing. The more she learns, the more she realises she doesn’t know.

 It takes them an hour and a half to reach the M50 highway, passing alongside an empty batch of houses that look like they’ve seen better days. Twice during this, Skulduggery grabs her by the upper arm, and they stand there. Both times, she reaches out with her senses and can feel something, something vague and far away, moving about, and a sheen of sweat breaks out on her forehead as they hold and wait.

 The M50 stretches all around Dublin, a concrete enclosure, and while Stephanie can’t see any walls that act as an official marking of Serpine’s Dublin, there’s something _wrong_ about the place, something muffled. Perhaps it’s the fact she can remember these roads, swarming in traffic; to see them empty is unnatural.

 They crouch beneath the M50 and Skulduggery points at the underside of it; she sees the sigil clusters there, too far away for her to read, a swirling curvature that stretches along the belly of the mid-air road.

 Skulduggery beckons her closer.

 “Are we going to negate it?” she murmurs to him.

 He shakes his head. “Too risky. The sigil alarms are extremely tight. But what we _do_ have are these.”

 He pulls out two rings from his pocket. Silver, engraved so delicately and complexly she can’t make out a single sigil.

 “China’s work,” he says. “It’s how I passed through everything unnoticed while I searched for the plans. Doesn’t work for teleportation magic, unfortunately.”

 He passes her one of the rings, and she slips it on her ring finger; the sigils glow just once, and she gasps a little- the sensation reaches down into the knot of her and lays close, covering her magic, and she can feel the sigil on her thigh warm.

 At the sight of their matching rings, she says, unnecessarily, “We match.” She holds her hand out to him like he’s just proposed-

 She shuts that thought down. Clearly her hangover is still getting the best of her.

 “Make sure that ring stays on,” he says. “Otherwise we won’t be able to get back out without making a lot of noise.”

 And then they cross. No alarms go off, and Stephanie sighs in relief as they continue.

   The divide between the outside and inside of the M50 is remarkable; the houses are clean, the grass cut perfectly, and some of the houses have lights on in the windows. They stay off the main highway and when they come to suburbia, Skulduggery stops her.

 “Cleaver,” he says, barely audible, and Stephanie shrinks against him as one passes an intersection ahead of them. But they’re in white, not grey, and the Cleaver looks eerie in the night, _wrong_.

 Skulduggery takes something else out from his jacket; a ball with two hemispheres. She’s carved one before, she remembers. He twists the two halves and something bubbles out from it, a silvery field that encloses both of them with ample room to spare. He places it back in his pocket.

 “There we go,” he says quite loudly, and she flinches. “Much better.”

 “Shut _up_ ,” she hisses, looking around wildly. Another Cleaver emerges and she goes stock still- but he walks straight past them.

 “It’s a cloaking sphere,” Skulduggery tells her, watching him pass. “As long as we’re inside it, we can’t be seen or heard.”

 Her heart is hammering; she tries to wrestle her breathing back under control.

 “One of the last in existence,” Skulduggery continues. “Serpine had them all destroyed, apparently. More likely, he had them rounded up so no-one could use them against him.” Skulduggery starts walking, and the bubble moves with him; she hastens to match his stride.

 “Of course, the problem is, they only last for a certain amount of time. So we have to make sure we find a hiding spot before the bubble gets too small to hide us,” Skulduggery explains. It feels unnatural how flippantly he strides through suburbia, without a care in the world.

 “Why haven’t you just assassinated Serpine already?” she whispers.

 “You can talk at a normal level,” he reminds her. “And to answer your question, we only have one cloaking sphere here in our Ireland Sanctuary, and only two of these rings. Serpine’s quarters are very tightly warded; we’d need several Sensitives and China herself to break the sigil clusters there. But if we have a teleporter…”

 “Then you can just bypass the alarms,” Stephanie says.

 “Exactly.”

  They weave through the streets, passing several more white Cleavers. While they can’t be seen or heard, Stephanie still holds her breath as they pass. Now that they’re on concrete as well, what little senses she had are muddled once more, and she can barely feel a thing as she takes each step.  

 And it’s so empty, derelict; where is everyone? Are they subject to curfew as well? She would have thought Serpine’s Dublin would be practically exempt from any rules, full of sorcerers living it up. They pass through Bluebell, then Inchicore, and then, as they’re heading north into Kilmainham, the bubble of the cloaking sphere shivers and contracts a little just as they pass a pair of patrolling Cleavers.

 “Uh,” Stephanie says.

 “Move faster,” Skulduggery says, and they start lightly jogging as the bubble begins shrinking. They come out onto another stretch of highway, and now the bubble is only centimeters from the top of Skulduggery’s head.

 “ _Faster_ ,” Skulduggery says, and then he’s grabbing her hand and towing her along like a bag of feathers as they sprint across the highway, her heart in her throat; Cleavers are stationed on either side of the intersection, and ahead of them is a park full of trees, statues, and more importantly- the cover of darkness. The bubble shivers, and Skulduggery boosts them with a rush of air across into the trees just as it shivers and disappears entirely; the air rushes down the highway and the Cleavers turn their head in the other direction just as Skulduggery cushions their landing and they settle into the darkness of the trees and bush. Stephanie struggles not to pant, her legs aching and her heart pounding, and she bends over, hands on her knees.

 Skulduggery quickly takes the sphere out and twists it; the bubble expands once more.

 “That was close,” he says.

 “They nearly _saw_ us,” she exclaims. “We could have died!”

 “But they didn’t,” he says cheerily, and she scowls.

 They come out into the park.

 “This used to be _Gairdíní Náisiúnta Cuimhneacháin Cogaidh na hÉireann,_ ” Skulduggery tells her.

 “Gezundheit,” Stephanie says, and he laughs.

 “In English- the Irish National War Memorial Park,” Skulduggery explains. “Didn’t you learn Gaelic in school?”

 “So?” Stephanie shrugs. “I learnt maths too, but that doesn’t mean I _remember_ it _._ ”

 There are two plinths in the middle of the grass, and on opposite ends, two sunken gardens; but they’re destroyed, crumbling. As they make their way to the giant tombstone in the middle, Stephanie can see the writing has been scratched out, and the symbol of the Faceless carved deep and brutal into it. Amongst these perfect houses and tidy roads, it’s like a warning/

 “Serpine,” she says, low and angry.

 “Serpine,” Skulduggery agrees, that darkness in his voice.

 They make their way to the north of the Memorial Park, to a domed, granite pergola overlooking the River Liffey. Skulduggery steps inside, so Stephanie follows.

 “ _We have found safety with all things undying,_ ” Skulduggery says suddenly, his voice deep and low, and something sparks in her, a drunken memory of him singing, of him looking at her, a memory that makes her heart catch in her throat. “ _The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth. The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying- And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth._ ”

 “You alright?” Stephanie says, putting the roughness in her voice down to the long periods of silence on the way here.

 “Look down,” he says, and she sees those words engraved on the floor. “They really have no sense of taste. Imagine using a War Memorial as a way into a _Necromancer_ Temple.”

 “Wait, _this_ is where the Temple is?”

 “The main entrance to the Temple is in Kilmainham Gaol, just a few streets away” Skulduggery says, looking up at the ceiling of the little pergola and then back down. “But we can’t just walk in through the front door. Lucky for us, however, there are about fifteen secret entrances around the area. This is the most secret of them.”

 “If it’s such a secret, how do you know it?” she asks.

 “I’m a very good detective with a sordid past,” Skulduggery says, reaching up and pressing parts of the column holding up the roof closest to him. “I know a lot of things.”

 “So how do we get in?”

 “That is, alas, one of the things I _don’t_ know,” he admits. “I’ve only ever used this as an exit, not an entrance.”  

 “You know,” Stephanie says, watching him squat and press random floor tiles, “You’re a less and less impressive detective the more I see you doing detective work.”

 “You could help at any moment,” Skulduggery says dryly, glancing up at her.

 “I _could_ ,” she says dubiously. “But that would take the fun out of it.”

 Her eyes wander as she says this, and she notices a little scratch on a floor tile behind him that looks oddly deliberate, a half circle.

 “Why can’t they have a simple lock and key,” Skulduggery mutters, going over to inspect another column. “Then I could just _break_ my way in.”

 While he grumbles, she looks at the tile closer, wishing the light was brighter, and sees the scratch actually has another, thinner scratch beneath it, like half a banana-

 The goddamned fruit bowl, she realises, and she thinks of China, stamping on the floor and wooden boards flitting away beneath them.

 With her shoe, she pours magic into the tip of her toe and completes the symbol, albeit clumsily, and there’s a click; the tiles all depress and twist to the left, and then in front of the stairs leading up to the pergola, another set of stairs appear in the footpath, leading down into darkness.

 “Skulduggery,” she says, and he peeks out from behind the column.

 “Did you do that?” he asks her.

 “I think so.”

 “Unbelievable,” he mutters. “Where was the lock?”

 “You were kind of squatting right over it,” Stephanie grins.

 “Of course I was,” he sighs. “Well, no time like the present.”

 They both descend the stairs, and Stephanie looks back to see them rise back up, and then they’re in darkness completely, until Skulduggery flicks a flame into his palm.

 The stairs go down for an indeterminable distance, and they walk for what feels like hours in this tight, claustrophobic little corridor.

 “Where does this come out?” Stephanie asks, both to break the silence and to distract herself from the tight walls.

 He shrugs, and the motion sends the light rolling off the walls. “Their cafeteria.”

 “They have a secret tunnel next to their _cafeteria_?”

 “Like I said,” he says, as they come to a door. “No sense of tact. Hold on a second.”

 He takes the cloaking sphere out to check it, and she sees little notches along where the two hemispheres meet, like an old fashioned timer.

 “We have about sixty minutes to get into their artefact room and back out into this tunnel,” he says, stowing it back in his pocket. “Let’s make this quick.”

 “Sounds good to me,” she says, and they both slip through the door.

 Her first impression is that it’s _dark_. Not just low lighting; the walls are a deep matte obsidian, absorbing the light Skulduggery’s fire emits, an unsettling sense of being swallowed. White Cleavers are stationed at every corner, and seeing them up close makes her wary. Grey Cleavers were terrifying, but they were a day to day part of life, a fear that blended in. With a white uniform, these Cleavers draw the eye; impossible to forget about.

 “I wonder why their uniforms are different,” Skulduggery says, perhaps thinking the same thing, and he pauses suddenly to look at one; she almost walks out of the bubble. He stands there, staring at the Cleaver and frowns.

 “They smell of death,” he murmurs.

 Stephanie sniffs the air.

 “Not literally,” he explains, and then they’re moving again. “Normal Cleavers are augmented magically, to make them stronger and faster. But these Cleavers have been augmented with Necromancer magic.”

 “What, like they’re dead or something?” Stephanie says, shivering.

 Skulduggery says nothing, and he’s walking faster; she has to jog every couple of seconds to keep up as he leads her through the dark halls. There’s not a person who isn’t a Cleaver to be seen, but she can put that down to the time of night. Eventually, they come to a stretch of wall and Skulduggery stops.

 “They moved the door,” he says. “That’s incredibly rude.”

 “Can’t you just pull it open?” Stephanie asks. “There’s no Cleavers around.”

 “It will make a lot of noise,” Skulduggery says, and for a few seconds just thinks, head tilted. He turns back to her and holds his arms out. “Come here.”

 Stephanie blinks. “What?”

 “I have an idea,” he says. “But we need to be quite close for it to work.”

 “Are you _sure_ you don’t just want to hug me?” she jokes.

 “That’s just a pleasant side effect,” he murmurs so quietly she thinks she might have imagined it, and she blinks again, her ears hot, was that _flirting_? But when he just looks at her patiently, she steps into his embrace. He leans them against the wall; the bubble clips through it. A few seconds pass, of him holding her, one arm around her waist and the other holding the back of her head, pressing into the side of his jaw. His skin feels remarkably real, but as her own hands snake around his waist, she can feel the bones of him beneath.

Gentle vibrations, and the wall is opening up, slow but sure, and the claustrophobia is all encompassing as with agonising slowness, the rock swallows them whole.

 “Almost there,” Skulduggery says, darkness and stone all around them; she knows that she’s safe, but she still trembles as she feels the rock catching around her, and then they come out the other side.

 The rock quietly crumbles back together and then the wall is unblemished black stone once more.

 Skulduggery is still holding her. He smells like clean fabric and faintly of ozone, and there’s a strange scent that reminds her of soap but not quite. When she waits for him to let go, he doesn’t immediately; the feel of his ribs beneath her fingers, and there’s the faintest tremor in him, and he steps away.

 “We only have about twenty minutes left,” he says, and that deep voice is _rough_ , and this is when Stephanie has the very troubling realisation that she’s attracted to a skeleton.

 

-

 

They search quickly and efficiently. Stephanie shunts this epiphany to the side; they just don’t have time.

 Skulduggery is looking for rings and a teleportation enabler, and she’s near a shelf of books, scanning them quickly. The first few are specifically about Necromancer traditions and history, and therefore are useless. She puts them back, scanning the titles for anything that seems relevant. She’s reading the content page of a handwritten tome about Necromancer magic when Skulduggery appears next to her.

 “Any luck?”

 “Nothing yet,” she replies. “You?”

 “Nothing,” he says, “I’ll take the bottom shelf. Keep going.”

 For a good ten minutes, they flip through book after book, and then Stephanie takes out a book that has no title embossed on the front, and only blank pages.

 “Weird,” she says.

 “Let me see,” Skulduggery says, looking up from his kneeling position on the floor. She passes it to him and he flips through.

 “Can you read it?”

 “Yes,” he says, but doesn’t offer an explanation how. He stops, and focuses on a particular page. Stephanie hears a door opening and closing, but Skulduggery doesn’t react, intently reading.

 “Skulduggery?” she whispers, and he holds out a hand; the air ripples around it faintly, and without looking up he says, “Just a Cleaver.”

 Sure enough, a Cleaver walks down the other end of the aisle, patrolling.

 “Found it,” Skulduggery says suddenly.

 “What?”

 “The fruit bowl,” he says. She watches the Cleaver disappear into the next aisle.

 “What is it?”

 Skulduggery says nothing for a few seconds, and then says, “Painfully oblique.”

 He presses his finger to the page, and suddenly there’s black text swimming up; a history of symbolism, and Stephanie reads the little sigil’s accompanying text:

 

_… used throughout Necromancer history to originally symbolise the Dead Realms, those places the living can not go without a Necronautic suit and a skilled Shunter or Teleporter. This ideogram of Egyptian origin now is commonly used in sigil magic as a grammatical object, usually referring to invisibility or things unseen, such as the sigil cluster used for the creation of cloaking spheres. It is also used to teach beginner Necromancers how to shadow-walk..._

“The Dead Realms,” Skulduggery murmurs. “I knew I had seen this before.”

 “The Dead Realms?”

 “A Necromancer term for alternate universes- specifically, ones that have entered entropy.”

 “What does that have to do with the Faceless Ones?” Stephanie frowns, recalling the plans to her mind. “This sigil is the object of the Gate’s sigil network. Why would they want to open a portal to the Dead Realms?”

 “Why indeed,” Skulduggery murmurs. “We’re missing more pieces of the puzzle still.”

 She glances back at the page. “Also, what’s a Shunter? And shadow-walking?”

 “Shunters can travel between dimensions. And shadow-walking is Necromancy’s less powerful answer to Teleporting.” Skulduggery puts the book back, and the Cleaver steps into their aisle, heading towards them.

 “Come on,” he says, and they quickly move out of the aisle at the opposite end.

 “What do we do now?”

 “This is the main artefact room,” Skulduggery says, as they wait for the Cleaver to pass. “But there’s another one. One most of the Necromancers don’t know about, because it’s for stolen technology and experiments they’ve accumulated over the years.”

 They follow the Cleaver out the door, and head in the opposite direction of him, taking stairs further down.

 “They’ll probably have the rings and teleportation enablers in there, if they have any at all,” Skulduggery continues. “And if we’re lucky, something to do with the Gate.”

 “Do we have time?” Stephanie asks. They’re jogging now, and her legs are starting to tire from the hours without rest.

 “We’ll just have to re-activate the sphere,” Skulduggery says grimly. “Once we leave, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to get back in as easily as we have tonight. This way.”

 Down another, longer, spiral staircase. Stephanie tries not to think about how deep beneath the ground they are now, as they scurry down the steps.

 They come out into a distinctly older looking hallway, the rock still just as black, but coarser, and down another hallway. There are less Cleavers here, less entrances and hallways, and it’s _cold_ , a cold that’s pervasive in a way she doesn’t understand.

 Skulduggery glances at her when she shivers. “Their shadow-forge is down here. It’s what they use to forge objects of Necromancer magic. That’s what you’re feeling; death magic.”

 She looks at him. He’s staring straight ahead as they jog down the hall, his face as blank as the skull behind it.

 They come up to another stretch of wall, and again, Skulduggery reaches his arms out to her; they sink into the wall together, his hand protective against her head, tight around her waist, and then they suddenly pause in the middle of the thick wall, rock all around her, holding her in place.

 “What is it?” she whispers, trying to push her claustrophobia down.

 “Someone’s on the other side,” Skulduggery murmurs. “Hold on.”

 She reaches out with her own magic, trying to find her way through the rock, creeping her awareness through the stone floor. She can feel, as if through thick carpet, someone walking by.

 Stephanie opens her eyes and it’s dark again, wrapped in Skulduggery’s embrace, and they wait, and now that epiphany is literally all around her, a throb deep in her that is extraordinarily inappropriate for the situation they’re in.

 She shivers. Perhaps mistaking it for fear, Skulduggery says softly, “Are you okay?”

 “Claustrophobic,” she mutters, grateful to have a legitimate excuse.

 “They’re almost gone,” he says, and his thumb strokes along her waist, likely an attempt to calm her. It doesn’t. It sends warmth racing up her back, and in a damning physical response, she arches against him. He freezes, and she feels his fingers tighten against her head. A hot flush along her cheeks, and she is embarrassed beyond relief.

 He’s a fucking _skeleton_ , she reminds herself.

 “Ticklish,” she says, trying not to nervously laugh.

 “My apologies,” he says in a neutral tone, his hand moving away and then- they’re moving once more and out the other side.

 They’re in a small hallway with several open rooms leading off in branches. There’s an elegance to it that suggests age, and it’s so cold in here her breath puffs into the air. Stephanie steps away from him immediately, red with embarrassment; he says nothing, to her eternal gratitude.

 As they walk, down the hallway, she berates herself, infuriated. She can _not_ be attracted to him. He doesn’t even have a _body_. And he’s such an asshole.

 (But that voice, the way he tilts his head-)

 Skulduggery leads her into a room full of ornate boxes and paintings, and he says, “Look for anything with an emblem comprised of a scorpion and three circles.”

 “Why?” Stephanie says, grateful for the reprieve from her own stupid thoughts. She starts looking through the boxes.

 “It’s a family crest,” Skulduggery explains, checking a stack of paintings. “China’s, in fact, not that she’ll ever admit it. I don’t blame her. It’s quite tacky.”

 “China’s-?”

 “Since sorcerers don’t always take the same surname, a family crest is how you track lineage. We’re looking for China’s because her family used to worship the Faceless Ones,” Skulduggery says without looking away. “Notoriously, in fact. Which is why it’s so easy for her to work as a double agent. Even before the Uprising, many people doubted she was trustworthy, especially after she worked for Mevolent in the First War.”

 That… Stephanie doesn’t know what to think about that. It’s not like she looked at China like a mother- God knows China never treated her like a daughter, but…

 China looked out for her. China saved her from Marr.

 “ _Is_ she trustworthy?” Stephanie asks.

 “That depends,” Skulduggery says.

 “Do _you_ trust her?”

 “I trust China to look out for herself,” he says eventually, as she flips over a box to find-

 “Scorpion and three circles,” she says, picking the box up and shaking it; she can feel something inside, but she can’t figure out how to open it.

 “It’s a puzzle box,” Skulduggery says, and she passes it to him. He flips it over in his hands, plays over the surface with his fingers, probing and pushing. His head tilts, and she looks away.

 Stupid, _stupid_.

 A noise, like a small motor, and the top of the box slides open to reveal a blue gemstone.

 “Ah,” Skulduggery says.

 “What is it?”

 “An Echo Stone,” he says. She remembers him mentioning them, and she squints as she tries to recall what it does.

 “It has a person in it or something, right?”

 “The imprinted consciousness of a person, yes. It’s imprinted on by people dying, to give their loved ones after they’re gone as consolation. But a long time ago, back before the type of gemstone required became scarce, it was also used by academics to pass on knowledge.”

 “How does it work?” Stephanie asks, peering at it closely. There’s no sigils, and it looks like a pretty golf ball for all the good it’s doing.

 Skulduggery touches a finger to it, and suddenly an old, dark skinned man with a cropped white beard stands in front of them.

 “Don’t be alarmed,” the old man says, looking amused when Stephanie steps back in surprise. “I’m here to answer your questions.”

 “Good,” Skulduggery says. “Because we need questions that need answers. Who are you?”

 “Bearach. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

 “Likewise,” Skulduggery says, rummaging through the shelves, looking at more boxes. “I’m sorry to be rude, Bearach, but your Echo Stone doesn’t have a Cradle, and we don’t have much time.”

 “Of course. What do you need to know?”

 “That depends on what you can give us,” Skulduggery says, looking over a small box.

 “I have an in-depth knowledge of the Ancients and by extension, the Faceless Ones. I was the one tasked with the documentation of their existence after Oisin absconded with our Echo Stone, the fool.”

 Stephanie digs around in her pocket and comes up, miraculously, with a piece of scrap paper. “Do you know anything about the Dead Realms?” Skulduggery asks.

“Never heard of them.”

“Skulduggery, do you have a pen?” Stephanie asks him.

“No,” Skulduggery says, but seems to know what she wants to ask; he traces the fruit bowl out with his finger, burning the paper, and Stephanie shows Bearach the the sigil.

 “Do you know anything about this?”

 “I do,” Bearach nods. “That’s one of the sigils on the Sceptre of the Ancients. It represents the Source, and the Faceless Ones.”

 Skulduggery looks up. “What about the sigil of the Faceless? The one with two circles?”

 Oisin waves his hand dismissively. “That is the sigil of my zealot family. _This_ sigil originally referred to the appearance of the Faceless Ones, which have been described as unknowable. One can not look at them without going mad, thus, they remain unseen. It can also, I believe, refer to the Source.”

 “How so?”

 “The Sceptre was created to destroy, and destroy it does, absolutely and without discrimination. It requires a significant amount of power to achieve that, and it achieves that by a clear, unmuddied connection to the Source.”

 “Can it be destroyed?” Stephanie asks.

 “The Sceptre itself? No. But there are translations we recently unearthed that suggested its power source -a black crystal- could be destroyed from within. We haven’t been able to discern what type of stone it is, only that the Faceless Ones created it, and that it acts as a connection between the Sceptre and the Source. Beyond that, I’m afraid I have nothing more to offer.”

 “How did the Faceless Ones leave?” Stephanie asks, mind racing.

 “The Faceless Ones, when confronted with a weapon even they were not immune to, fled in droves from this reality, much in the way a Shunter can.”

 “But where did they go?”

 “We don’t know. But they haven’t come back.”

 “They may be coming back if you can’t help us,” Skulduggery says, and Bearach frowns. Skulduggery pops open a box and takes out several rings, slides them into his pocket, and keeps looking.

 “What do you mean?” Bearch says, concerned.

 “A very evil man has gotten a hold of the Sceptre. He has overthrown the entire planet, and plans to bring the Faceless Ones back. Do you have any idea how he could do this?”

 Bearach flickers, and looks apologetic. “I don’t have a lot of time left before the Stone runs out of power.”

 “Quickly,” Stephanie urges him.

 “I don’t know. Short of knowing his true name…”

 “He does,” Skulduggery says grimly. “He has the Book of Names.”

 Bearach flickers again. “Then he could, with that power and the Sceptre combined.”

 “What-” Skulduggery begins, and then Bearach is suddenly gone once more.

 “Damn it,” he says quietly, sliding the top of the box back over. He then returns the box to the shelf.

 “What happened?” Stephanie says. “Is he… gone?”

 “No. The Stone will recharge by itself, but it will take a year or so without a Cradle to power it.”

 “Guess we’re shit out of luck, then,” Stephanie grimaces.

 “Keep looking. Hopefully there’s a teleporter enabler here somewhere.”

 They search in silence, Stephanie’s mind racing as she tries to place the meaning of this symbol in to the sigil network she has been studying for nearly a month now, but she’s too jumbled, fatigue starting to overtake her; she can’t recall the network properly. It will have to wait until she’s safe and well rested.

 “Found it,” Skulduggery says, pulling out a chunky bangle. It’s inlaid with a rough chunk of clear quartz, which in turn is Carved with many sigils, all of which have to do with focusing, piercing, and shielding. He puts it in his pocket, and at this point, the cloaking sphere starts to shiver and contract, and of course this is when someone comes into the room. A tall, handsome man with long dark hair tied out of his dark eyes. He wears a mandarin suit, all in black, and as he passes them to another shelf, she sees the cane he’s carrying in his other hand.

 “Wreath,” Skulduggery says, a bitterness in his voice she’s never heard before.

 “Who?”

 “I’ll explain another time. We need to get out of here.”

 He pulls her out of the room, and they race down the hallway, looking for somewhere to hide until they can reset the sphere. Room after room, all of them big and full of shelves clipped to the wall, nowhere they can stand behind. At the end of the hall is a room not unlike a surgery, a giant table in the middle of it. A huge lump sits on top, covered by white cloth that drapes all the way to the ground.

 “In there,” Skulduggery says, pulling her after him; they slide underneath the table, and Stephanie wrinkles her nose at the smell of formaldehyde. They wait as the bubble contracts closer and closer, and just as it only covers half of them, someone walks into the room.

 Stephanie puts her hand over her mouth, trying to silence her breathing, feeling sweat prickle on her back. Skulduggery silently puts his hand into his jacket, and they hold, waiting.

 The bubble contracts again, and whoever it is keeps walking, comes to the table and stops.

 The cloaking sphere disappears.

 And then, the white sheet is yanked off, and the man- Wreath - bends down to look at them.

 “Hello,” he says pleasantly.

 Skulduggery says nothing, just watches and waits.

 “I have to wonder,” he continues, smiling, “Why on earth two non-Necromancers are hiding beneath a table in our innermost sanctum?”

 Skulduggery remains silent.

 “We got lost?” Stephanie offers feebly, and Wreath laughs.

 “Nice try,” Wreath says, and lifts his cane-

 Skulduggery whips out his gun so fast she doesn’t even have time to flinch, and holds it to Wreath’s head. Wreath puts his cane back down.

 “Those are very familiar guns,” he says, tone still easy, as if they’re all friends here. “They’ve been pointed at my head a few times, I’d wager.”

 Why isn’t Skulduggery _talking_?

 “And considering the man they belonged to is long dead,” Wreath says thoughtfully. “I have to wonder how you managed to get a hold of them.”

 Skulduggery motions with the gun, and he walks backwards; Skulduggery pulls the two of them up from beneath the table.

 “Unless, of course, the man they belonged to _isn’t_ long dead. Now _that_ would be interesting.” Wreath looks away, his hands up. “Interesting, and timely. The man those guns belong to would be a very welcome surprise. So welcome, I might just let him and his beautiful friend walk right out of here.”

 A snarl pulls up on Skulduggery’s facade, and he crosses the room, jams the gun under the man’s jaw.

 “Easy, now,” Wreath says, but he isn’t smiling anymore, and he drops the cane deliberately. The noise of it clattering against the floor is like a gunshot, and Stephanie flinches.

 “You should have let me kill him,” Skulduggery says, so very quietly.

 “It _is_ you,” Wreath says, disproportionately delighted. “How did you manage that?”

 “I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Skulduggery says, and pulls his gun back. For a moment, she can see Wreath relax, and then Skulduggery brings the gun across his face, a sick _snap_ , blood gushing down onto that impeccable suit.

 “I earned that,” he admits thickly, fishing out a handkerchief and holding it to his face.

 “Shut up,” Skulduggery says. “How did you know we were here?”

 “I didn’t, until I saw the sheet moving.” Wreath probes his face gingerly. “You’ve lost your touch. You didn’t even break my nose.”

  Skulduggery punches him in the sternum so hard that Wreath coughs out blood. Stephanie automatically steps back into the table they hid under, and looks around when she hits it.

 A corpse, huge, patched and mangled, covered in bandages and looking strange, _wrong_ , lies there. It looks like a Lovecraftian Frankenstein’s monster.

 Stepping into the table rattles it, and the noise draws Skulduggery’s attention; he glances over, frowning.

 “Why is the Grotesquery here?” he demands.

  “Serpine has us working on bringing it back to life,” Wreath coughs. Skulduggery grabs him by the collar and lifts him off the floor.

 “Why?”

 “He’s going to use it to open the Gate, somehow,” Wreath says, trying to pull himself away.

 “How?”

 “Who, what, when, where?” Wreath laughs. “Goodness, when did you become so stoic?”

 She can see the fury in Skulduggery’s fake eyes, and he says nothing, but there’s a distortion in the air around Wreath’s head, his hair moving, and that laughter turns to gasps.

 Stephanie realises that he’s suffocating him.

 “Alright,” Wreath says weakly, slapping at Skulduggery’s forearm. The distortion fades, and Wreath takes deep, greedy breaths. “I don’t know how. None of us do. He’s not putting his eggs in one basket. Sorrows has the Gate, Serpine has the Scepter, and we have the Grotesquery. He wants us to bring it back to life, but it needs something we’re still waiting on.”

 “What does it need?” Skulduggery says, setting him down.

 “The blood of the Ancients,” Wreath says. “Would you pick my cane back up? I’m afraid I might pass out if I lean down.”

 Skulduggery leans down and passes it to him, and the man leans on it for support.

 “The Ancients are long dead,” Skulduggery says, gun still trained on him. Wreath’s blood speckles its muzzle a pretty red.

 “Their descendants live on, though,” Wreath corrects him. “We narrowed it down just yesterday, in fact, to some poor middle aged mortal man in Haggard.”

 “Where is he?”  Skulduggery asks.

 “Still in Haggard. Serpine’s sending the Diablerie out tonight. It’s a good thing Sorrows still isn’t finished on the Gate, because otherwise, this time tomorrow you would be saying hi to the old gods as they melt your face off.”

 “The Necromancers _work_ for Serpine,” Skulduggery reminds him.

 “Under duress,” Wreath reminds him right back, adjusting his cuffs. “In case you’ve forgotten, he’s rather powerful. We’ve been hoping someone would step up to the plate, and here you are, fresh faced and angrier than ever.”

 “ _You_ could have stepped up.”

 “Could haves and should haves,” Wreath says. “You’re here now and that’s all that matters. You better scurry on out of here before someone less… agreeable finds you.”

 “I should shoot you right here and now,” Skulduggery says.

 Wreath pulls out a pocket watch and checks it. “Well, get on with it then. But good luck when my loyalty sigil activates and brings a small army of Cleavers down on your head.”

 There’s a long, long moment where Skulduggery has that gun trained on him. Wreath puts his pocket watch away, leaning on the cane, patient.

 Skulduggery stows his gun.

 “If you survive the coming war,” he says, “I hope I never have to see your face again.”

 Wreath dips his head graciously, and Skulduggery motions for Stephanie to come to him; she does, and he reactivates the cloaking sphere.

 “Gordon Edgley's mansion,” Wreath calls after them. “I hear Serpine has some important documents stored there.”

 And then, they’re gone.

 

-

 

They’re hiking back through Ballycroy National Park, and Stephanie is so tired she’s stumbling; her body shaking from so many near misses out of Dublin, from nonstop walking and nonstop caution.

“So now what?” she asks him. “Are we going to go rescue that mortal?” She pauses. “I could say hi to my dad while we’re there. That’d be nice.”

“No. Without a concrete identity, it’s pointless; we’d only run smack bang into a small army. Serpine will keep him safe; he’s too valuable to kill, at least until the Gate is open. So, as much as I’m loath to follow Wreath’s suggestion, we need to go Gordon’s house.”

“Why would he tell us to go there?” Stephanie yawns.

“Gordon may have been mortal, but his library was extensive. He must have something there that can help us- whether it’s how to destroy the Sceptre, or what the Dead Realms have to do with the Gate…”

 She stumbles again, and Skulduggery turns to her.

 “Are you quite alright?”

 “I’m _exhausted_ ,” she says. “I haven’t slept. I still have a hangover. It’s a wonder I haven’t collapsed, frankly.”

 “Are you asking for me to carry you?”

“I mean, I wouldn’ say _no_ ,” she laughs, and then barely contains her yelp as he bends and lifts her up bridal style as if she’s no heavier than a feather. A blush spreads along her face, but also, it’s _really_ nice to be off her feet, which feel the approximate size and weight of bowling balls.

 “Wow,” she says.

“If you wanted a hug, all you had to do was ask,” Skulduggery murmurs, and she laughs, even as that blush spreads to her ears.

 “Shut up, you big goon,” she mumbles, smiling. His arms are thin, and they’re cold, and they jab into her. But she doesn’t mind.

 It doesn’t take long for the gentle motion of him walking to relax her; with every step, her eyes close a little more, until she’s half asleep and looking up at him.

 She doesn’t like this face. It’s genteel, for a start. And it’s not _him_.

 “Take it off,” she says suddenly.

 “Excuse me?”  
 “Your facade. Take your facade off.”

  “My hands are somewhat full,” he reminds her.

  “Fine,” Stephanie mumbles, and drags one of her hands to his collarbones; lazy magic coils from her fingers, and the facade melts away, and there he is, bare skull and all.

 “Much better,” she murmurs, and then she falls asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE ARE VERY CLOSE TO THE END!!!!!! 5 more chapters to go!!
> 
> (Thanks as always for the kudos and comments!!!! mwah!!!)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tanith is merciless. The Dead Men move on out. Stephanie finds something long forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to Mooncactus for the superb beta job!

Stephanie sleeps long, and sleeps well, and wakes up aching absolutely everywhere with her bladder fit to burst.

 She hobbles to the bathroom, relieves herself, and then has a shower until her skin is mottled red from the welcome heat, letting it soothe her muscles, and she’s scrubbing her underarms when she remembers Skulduggery carrying her home, and she flushes even redder.

 Ah. Right. She had tucked away that little relevation. But now she’s home, and she’s safe, and, well. It’s embarrassing. He’s such an  _ asshole _ . But he carried her all the way home, made sure she was tucked into bed, so… maybe he’s  _ not _ an asshole? Well.  _ Less _ of an asshole.

  She turns off the water, dries herself, chewing on her lip. There’s a note on her desk, in handwriting she can only assume is Skulduggery’s, elegant and careful.

_ Valkyrie, _ it reads.  _ We have a meeting with the rest of the Dead Men at 20:00. I will pick you up- figuratively. I’m still exhausted from lugging you all the way back here. You really are a terrible nuisance. Yours, Skulduggery. _

__ She huffs a laugh even as she rolls her eyes. There’s an indent on the comma before his name, the ink bleeding out. She wonders if he held his pen there for too long.

_ Yours _ . 

 It’s just a figure of speech. A common sign off. And she’s being stupid, and acting far too young for her age. Get a  _ grip _ , she tells herself. They don’t have time for this. 

 (But he sang to her, she thinks, held her gaze as he sang a love song, that couldn’t have just been the wine, could it?)

 

-

 

They’re sitting in Tanith’s room, eating sandwiches and catching up on the last few days, and it’s really  _ nice _ . Partly because she’s starving, partly because Tanith is her friend, mostly because sitting down has never felt so good. She’s relaxed. Doesn’t have to think about Skulduggery, or the coming war, can just focus on her friend telling her some funny stories about sorcerers she’s trying to whip into shape.

 Tanith, it seems has other ideas, because with the casual elegance of a soldier lobbing a grenade into a trench full of people, she says, “So are we going to talk about Skulduggery singing a love song to you in the middle of a crowded room?”

 Stephanie chokes on her sandwich. “What- I-  _ what _ -”

 “I’ve been around for nearly one hundred years, Val. It’s not difficult to tell when someone’s keen on someone else.”

 Stephanie reflexively punches her in the arm, and Tanith laughs, but keeps talking _.  _ “You spend every day together… he’s always talking about you… and don’t think the news hasn’t spread that he carried you all the way home.”

Stephanie blinks. “He… talks about me?”

“Yeah,” Tanith says casually, digging a finger into her ear.

“But he’s so… he’s such.. _. _ ” she stumbles desperately. Tanith watches on in amusement as she scrambles.  “Look,” Stephanie finally says, and laughs at an alarmingly high pitch. “We’re just friends. And besides, he’s… there’s just. He’s not interested.”

 “Oh, Val, my sweet summer child,” Tanith sighs. “Show him some ankle and watch him absolutely lose his mind. Men  _ love _ some ankle. Don’t show him any calf, though. That’d be a bit much.”

 “I could show him my entire ass and it might not mean a thing, because he is a  _ skeleton,  _ remember?” Stephanie points out. “He can’t… you know.” She pauses. “Right?”

 “Are you asking me,” Tanith says flatly, “If Skulduggery Pleasant can have sex?”

 She turns beet red. “No!” 

 “I think you’d be best to ask him yourself,” Tanith says, grinning.

 “I would literally rather  _ die _ ,” Stephanie mutters.

  “Can you imagine?” Tanith cackles. “‘Hi, Skulduggery, yeah, hey, look, throw me a bone.  _ Your _ bone.’”

 “Oh, my God,” Stephanie says, and throws a cushion at her head.

 

-

 

When Skulduggery comes to pick her up for the meeting, she’s almost too embarrassed to look at him after all of Tanith’s nonsense. Because it  _ is _ nonsense. He’s a  _ widower _ , for God’s sake. 

 (In the back of her head, a voice very much like Tanith’s groans in annoyance.)

“I hope you’ve recovered,” Skulduggery says as they walk through the caves. “If this meeting goes well, we’ll likely be moving out again tonight.”

This gets her attention, takes her mind out of the ridiculous place it’s been stuck in. “So soon?”   
“China’s report came in today,” Skulduggery tells her. “The Gate’s almost finished, and by her estimate, we only have a few days left.”

 “But that’s impossible,” Stephanie frowns. “The Gate should have taken her  _ months _ to do by herself.”

 “Apparently, Serpine’s fast tracked everything. Her entire studio is working on it.”

 “She’d  _ hate _ that,” Stephanie murmurs, picturing all the beginner Carvers packed into China’s private room.

 “So between the Gate,” Skulduggery continues, counting them off on his fingers, “The Grotesquery, and the mortal descendent of the Ancient Ones… we don’t have a lot of room for error.”

 “You never did tell me what the Grotesquery was,” Stephanie says.

 “Ugly, mainly,” Skulduggery says, and she laughs. “One of Mevolent’s Three Generals- Grievous- cobbled it together. All sort of nasty bits and pieces sewn on to it. The nastiest, though, is it’s torso- the only surviving corpse of a Faceless One, so the legends go.”

 Stephanie’s stares. “We were hiding beneath the corpse of a  _ Faceless One _ ?”

 “ _ Alleged _ Faceless One,” Skulduggery says. “Anyway, Grievous planned to bring it back to life or something, and it would call for the Faceless Ones.”

 “What do you mean,  _ call _ ?” Stephanie says doubtfully. “Because you make it sound an awful lot like the Faceless Ones would be this thing’s butler.”

 “Call as in, remind the Faceless Ones where Earth is.”

 “Oh.”

 “But it requires specific astronomic circumstances, which aren’t to happen for another several decades. So I’m a little… uncertain as to what Serpine wants with it.”

 They come to the cave entrance. The rest of the Dead Men are already there, and Skulduggery seals the wall up behind them as Stephanie sits down at that rough hewn table.

 “Corrival was just filling us in,” Erskine tells them. Skulduggery sits down next to her, placing his hat on the table. He sits perfectly upright, tilts his head, and Stephanie looks straight ahead. 

 Now is  _ not _ the time, she tells herself.

“Can we trust Wreath?” Anton asks Skulduggery quietly. “The man is a menace.”

 “Anton’s right,” Saracen says, rubbing his chin. “I mean, Skulduggery, you know first hand what sort of guy Wreath is. He  _ harboured _ Serpine, for God’s sake.”

 He harboured Serpine? Is this when Serpine was absolved after the First War? Stephanie  _ does _ glance at Skulduggery then, and thinks she can detect resignation in his posture, in how he folds his fingers over each other, the creaking of leather.  

 “Wreath may be scum stuffed into a skin sack,” Skulduggery says slowly. “But he also knows when to jump ship. I may not trust him, but I trust his self preservation.”

 Ghastly, who has been silent this whole time, says, “I don’t think we  _ should  _ trust him, Skul.”

 “We don’t have any other leads,” Skulduggery says, turning his head to him. “We  _ know _ he stores plans in Gordon’s mansion, we  _ know _ the place is under heavy guard. We can’t teleport into his Sanctum until we  _ know  _ we can destroy the Scepter.”

 “Yes, we can,” Erskine reminds him. “We have guards on the inside. We could take a small team and be in and out before Serpine’s blood even has time to dry.”

 “You all know I’m the first to leap at danger,” Dexter says, shaking his head, “But it’d be a fool’s game to charge into that Sanctum when he has the Book and the Scepter. I’m with Skulduggery. We’ve got those rings now, breaking into Grimwood should be no problem.”

 “Quiet down, lads,” Corrival says, and everyone turns to face him. “We’re cutting it too close to play safe. We’ve all seen China’s report. We have at best a week left before Serpine goes ahead with whatever scheme he’s planning.”

 “I think we should go,” Stephanie says, and now everyone’s looking at  _ her _ . “I was looking at the plans, now we know what that symbol means. It’s talking about using a connection between the Gate and the Faceless Ones, a connection that will keep the Gate open.”

 “The Grotesquery is involved, somehow,” Skulduggery continues, when Stephanie looks at him beseechingly to take over. “And with China’s library gone, Gordon’s is the next best thing we have. If anyone has a book on how to destroy the Grotesquery, and the Scepter, it’s Gordon.”

 “But what if it’s a trap?” Ghastly says, and Anton nods. “Because, and forgive me if I’m the only person getting this impression, it really,  _ really _ , looks like one.”

 “We don’t have a choice,” Skulduggery says, and there’s that roughness, startling in how long it’s been since she’s heard it. “Even once Serpine’s dead, his Acolytes will try to pick up his work. We need to cut off the head, yes, but the body will stumble around and cause just as much damage if we leave a giant damn  _ sword _ in its hands.”

 “You’re too close to this,” Ghastly says, frustrated. “Corrival, for God’s sake, you can’t think this is a good idea.”

 “So  _ what _ if I’m too close to this?” Skulduggery says loudly, standing up; his chair screeches back as he puts his hands on the table. “Serpine killed my wife and child, and he killed me. I’m  _ furious _ . I’ve been furious for the last three hundred years. I’d say it’s a very reasonable response.”

 “Skulduggery,” Ghastly says in exasperation, but Skulduggery keeps talking. Stephanie, and the rest of the Dead Men, stare at him, and this unusual outburst.

 “Me being furious doesn’t change that fact that I’m  _ right _ . It doesn’t change the fact that if we don’t burn Serpine’s Empire to the ground in one fell swoop, we will be working to dismantle it for decades to come. We have one week left,  _ at best _ , and an opportunity too valuable to pass up is  _ right  _ in front of us. An opportunity to knock out Serpine’s supports one by one. And you believe it isn’t worth the  _ risk _ ?”

 “Ghastly is being pragmatic,” Erskine says. “We  _ have _ to be pragmatic.”

 “We are housing tens of thousands in here,” Ghastly reminds him, just as loudly, brows furrows. “They need leaders,  _ protectors _ . And we can’t  _ do that _ if we’re  _ dead _ .”

 “Then stay here then, if you’re such a coward,” Skulduggery snaps. Stephanie’s mouth drops open. Dexter whistles low and loud as Ghastly’s chair screeches back and Ghastly stands up, leaning over the table, glowering.

 “ _ Enough _ ,” Corrival booms. Skulduggery pauses, and for a second, Stephanie thinks he might direct his anger to Corrival. But his chair slides back to him with a flick of his fingers and he sits down, arms crossed.

 “I’m pulling rank,” Corrival tells them calmly. “You’ll move out tonight. Ghastly, I think it’s best you go alert Fletcher that we’ll be making use of him. Anton, you’ll stay here with me. Bernard would rather have my head if I interrupted your honeymoon.”

 Ghastly sighs, and leaves the room. Stephanie can feel Skulduggery simmering next to her.

 “Dexter, Saracen. I need you two to put together the team’s gear. Anton, please accompany them and make sure they don’t pack anything stupid, or get… distracted.”

 “Babysitting,” Anton grunts, but he stands up. Dexter and Saracen grin at each other, and the three of them leave.

 “Erskine,” Corrival says. “I need you to do one last thorough sweep of the security we have set up. Make sure it’s tight.” 

 Erskine nods, leaves, and then it’s just her, Skulduggery, and Corrival. Skulduggery is silent, sitting petulant in his chair, and Corrival looks at him.

 “What about me?” Stephanie says eventually.

 “What about you, dear?”

 “I know Gordon’s house better than you guys,” she points out, glancing at Skulduggery. “I should go.”

 “We have enough rings,” Skulduggery says quietly. 

 “That’s a team of seven, including Fletcher,” Corrival says gently. “That’s larger than we need. Too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil the broth.”

 “Many hands make light work,” Stephanie says immediately.

 “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”

 “Oh come on,” Stephanie complains. “ _ Fletcher _ is going to be there.”

 Skulduggery huffs a laugh at that, and she looks at him, pleased to see his posture loosening.

 “Fletcher  _ needs _ to go,” Corrival says, but she can sense him weakening. 

 “I want her there,” Skulduggery says firmly, sitting forward. “Valkyrie has proven herself invaluable to this mission.”

 She preens, and Corrival sighs. “Stephanie, could you wait outside? I need to have a word to Skulduggery. Alone.”

 Stung, Stephanie stands up and walks outside; the wall seals up behind her.

 She wants to go. She can’t just opt out now, not after everything she’s done. And it’s exciting, working alongside them, exciting to be part of a revolution, exciting to be doing  _ something _ . The same sort of feeling she felt for an instant when she punched Marr in the face. Satisfaction.

 Skulduggery strides out a few minutes later, putting his hat on his head, and she straightens up from where she was leaning on the wall.

 “Well?” she says.

 “You’re coming with us,” he says, and they walk back down the hallway together in silence. She can’t sense that anger, now, something else, something she can’t place.

 He says, quite abruptly, “I hope I didn’t scare you back there.”

 “Scare me?” she says, thrown off her game.

 “I got a little… angry.”

 “I’m a grown woman, as you so cuttingly reminded all those weeks ago,” she says, and he chuckles. “I killed a vampire, remember? It takes a little more than an angry bag of bones to scare me.”

 “ _ Bag _ ?” Skulduggery says, playing wounded. “I’m classier than a  _ bag. _ Look at me. I’m debonair.”

 “Oh, I don’t know,” Stephanie says teasingly. “That’s not your  _ best _ suit…”

 “Valkyrie, as usual, you cut to the core of me.”

 “You don’t have any skin. It’s not very difficult.”

 “I may not have skin, but I’m still a  _ man _ ,” he protests, but his voice is a little softer, and they’re both walking a little closer to each other than they need to be, and Stephanie pretends this is fine, this is just two friends ribbing each other. 

 “Oh, really?” she says innocently. 

 “A man with taste. And feelings.”

 “What type of feelings?” She grins.

 “Annoyed ones, mainly,” he says, a little shiftily.

 “Do  _ I _ annoy you, Skulduggery?” Stephanie says, and to her horror, the sentence comes out a little breathier than she intended. He tilts his head, coming to a stop.

 “All the time,” he nods, crossing his arms. 

 “Tanith said you talk about me a lot.”

 His head tilts back, and she raises her eyebrows as watches him search for a response.

“I do,” he concedes. “About what annoying you are.”

“Oh, of course,” she says. 

(They’re both smiling.)

 

-

 

They sojourn for few hours. Stephanie has a nap. A long one. She isn’t doing that whole sleepless night nonsense again. But when Skulduggery raps on her door, she’s startled awake and has to rush to the bathroom, yank on her clothes, as he raps continuously, patiently, infuriatingly, on her door.

 As she opens it, she realises that her shirt isn’t buttoned all the way up. 

 “I was beginning to think you’d drowned in there,” Skulduggery says dryly, and she crosses her arms automatically, ready to sass him back, but the motion brings her cleavage front and centre, and she watches as his facade’s eyes drop down and then straight back up. 

 “I- I overslept,” she admits, thrown off. “I’ll just. Get my jacket.”

 While her back is turned, she hastily does the rest of the buttons up. 

_ What the hell was  _ that?

 They meet the other Dead Men near the cave’s antechamber. Dexter, Saracen, Erskine and Ghastly are all wearing what looks like combat gear, dark clothing with hoods. Fletcher is wearing jeans and a jumper.

 “Why don’t  _ we  _ have cool combat gear?” Stephanie mutters to Skulduggery.

 “Oh, I have a matching outfit. But then you would stick out, and I thought, we can’t have that.”

 “That’s… oddly touching”

 “Not really. I just look much better in a suit.”

 “One day,” she says jokingly, “You’re going to have to acknowledge these burgeoning feelings of yours.”

 “I beg to differ,” he replies, and walks away before she can even blink, joining the Dead Men’s conversation.

 “-leport to just outside Dublin, make our way north to Haggard-”

 “We can’t walk all that way,” Fletcher says over Ghastly, horrified. 

 “You haven’t  _ been _ to Haggard,” Ghastly reminds him. 

 “I have, actually,” Fletcher says. “When I was a kid, I went up there with the parents for a weekend by the beach.”

 “Thank God,” Dexter says. “That’ll shave a bit of time off.”

 “Where did you go?” Stephanie asks, and Fletcher looks at her coolly. It confuses her until she remembers their tense conversation at the wedding.

 “I can’t remember what it was called,” he says. “But it was near a jetty and an icecream parlour.”

 “Blackrock, then,” Stephanie says decisively.

 “Gordon’s place is about a two hour walk to the west of there,” Skulduggery says. 

 “We  _ still  _ have to walk?” Fletcher mutters. Stephanie rolls her eyes. 

 “Put these on,” Skulduggery says, and passes everyone a ring- or in Fletcher’s case, a bracelet.

 “I have to wear this?” Fletcher says, wrinkling his nose.

 “Unless you want to be electrocuted by the sigils set up all over the east coast and bring a team of Cleavers on us, then yes,” Skulduggery says. 

 Fletcher puts on the bracelet.

 “Alright, join hands,” Dexter says cheerfully, and they do. Stephanie takes Ghastly’s and Skulduggery’s hands.

 “We’ll teleport on Fletcher’s count,” Skulduggery says.

 “On three,” Fletcher says, looking an odd mixture of nervous and excited. “One… two… three-”

 The world twists in that sickening way Stephanie is becoming more familiar with, and with Skulduggery’s hand tight in her own, when they come out on the beach front, she pants and keels over, but doesn’t throw up, much to her own pride. Saracen is the one who breaks the circle to vomit into a bush.

 “It’s been a while,” he mumbles. Dexter pats him on the back.

 “No alarms went off,” Ghastly says in relief. 

 “That was  _ amazing _ ,” Fletcher says, looking at the bracelet. He disappears suddenly, and Stephanie flinches, looking around; he reappears a few meters away, grinning.

 “Fletcher-” Skulduggery says, but he disappears once more, and appears on the crest of the path looking onto the shore, arms in the air, joyous.

 “ _ Fletcher _ ,” Skulduggery says, and he reappears next to Stephanie, who flinches in surprise. Before he can move again, Skulduggery’s arm snaps out and he grabs Fletcher’s shoulder.

 “Do  _ not _ do that again,” Skulduggery says, very quietly. 

 “But-”

 Skulduggery lets go of Stephanie’s hand, and raises his hand to point at him threateningly. Stephanie blinks; she hadn’t realised he hadn’t let go yet.

 “You need to stick to us like glue,” Skulduggery says. “That means  _ no teleporting. _ ” he pauses, and then amends, a little softer when he sees Fletcher’s downtrodden look, “Unless I say so.”

 “Fine,” Fletcher mutters, yanking his shoulder from Skulduggery’s grip.

 “I’m fine, by the way,” Saracen says weakly, and throws up again.

 

-

 

It’s a not unpleasant walk, if she’s honest; the terrain is easy to cross, and while all of them are silent and keeping low, it’s a nice change from the stumbling through forest hills, or sneaking through scarily empty streets. 

 The Dead Men are wary, she notices. They move like a wheel well oiled, surrounding her and Fletcher; Saracen and Erskine at the back, Skulduggery on her left, Ghastly at the front, and Dexter on the right of Fletcher.

 Protecting them, she realises.

 Haggard is on their right, and she wonders how her dad is. She looks over; she can’t see the town from her, but it’s nice knowing he’s not too far away.

 When all this is over, she’s going to get him the biggest, fanciest cake. With lots of cream. And she’ll tell him all about her adventures, about the Arbiters, and maybe even bring Skulduggery along. He and her dad would get along, she thinks. Her mum, too.

 When she realises she’s effectively imaging a “Meet the Parents” sort of situation, her ears turn red. 

 “Hold on,” Skulduggery says quietly, and they stop. Stephanie casts out her magic, eyes closing, and can’t feel a thing of course.

 “Team of Cleavers,” Ghastly murmurs. “Passing by along the M1.”

 Sure enough, an automated carriage shuttles along in the distance.

 “Get down,” Skulduggery says, and they quickly flatten themselves against the grass. 

They lay there as it passes, and she looks at Skulduggery, grins at how ridiculous they all look. Even in the dim light of the moon, she can see his mouth twitch back.

 “We’re clear,” Ghastly whispers, and they cautiously raise back up; the carriage is well out of sight, and they creep across the M1.

 The countryside, unlike Dublin, isn’t so strange when it’s empty. They pass by a couple of houses, but she can almost pretend they’re occupied, and that the tenants are just asleep. Out here, it really  _ could  _ just be a night before the Uprising. 

 Even passing through the cabbage fields makes her nostalgic. She remembers plodding through these with her friends, how their thighs would burn. She wonders if her twelve year old self, so longing for excitement, would be horrified or ecstatic to see her now.

 Probably ecstatic. 

 As they come alongside the Fame River, Skulduggery comes a little closer to Stephanie.

 “Are you alright?” he murmurs.

 She stares at him, and keeps her voice low. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

 “Well, I was wondering if going back to Gordon’s house might make you sad.”

 “He died like… over a decade ago, Skulduggery.”

 “Sadness doesn’t have a time limit,” he says. 

 “I’m fine,” she says. “No need to worry.”

 “I wasn’t  _ worried _ ,” he says. “Just… concerned.”

 “Will you two love birds be quiet?” Erskine whispers. Ghastly barks a laugh before he can stop himself and claps his hand over his mouth when everyone looks at him.

 “We weren’t saying anything,” Dexter protests.

 “Oh, my God,” Erskine mutters.

 “He means Valkyrie and Skulduggery,” Saracen whispers to Dexter.

 “Oh. Yeah, shut up you two.”

 She keeps expecting Skulduggery to deny these accusations, but he just looks straight ahead. She can’t decide whether this is a bad thing or not.

 “Wait,” Fletcher says. “Are you and Skulduggery…?”

 “ _ Shhh, _ ” Ghastly says furiously, and they all fall silent.

-

 

The mansion is similar in some very overt ways; the sprawling greenery, the rushing river. It’s dissimilar in that there is a Cleaver stationed every five meters in a circle around its diameter.

 “Overkill,” Skulduggery murmurs, as they huddle a safe distance away, and pulls out the cloaking sphere.

 “We aren’t going to all fit under that,” Erskine says.

 “We don’t have to,” Skulduggery replies. “You and Fletcher stay here and watch the perimeter. If anything goes wrong, you both teleport in there and get us  _ out _ . Dexter, I want you on active patrol. Ghastly, Saracen, you’re with me and Valkyrie.”

 “Active patrol?” Dexter whines. Saracen punches him in the arm.

 “Yes, active patrol. Send a pulse to my communicator if anything changes. Same goes for you, Erskine.” He motions with the sphere. “Saracen, Ghastly, on me.” 

 The two men squeeze against Stephanie, and Skulduggery twists the sphere; the field bubbles out and encloses them.

 “Stay close,” Skulduggery says, and the four of them set off towards the little bridge over the river, moving slow but steady. Valkyrie is sandwiched in the middle, her front against Skulduggery’s back, but she’s too nervous to feel anything much about it. There’s a malignance in the air here, a coldness not there before, that reminds her of the Necromancer Temple. The abundance of Cleavers, a shocking white against the night, don’t help.

 “That’s a  _ lot _ of Cleavers,” Saracen mutters. “What the hell is Serpine hiding in here?”

 “The entrance to the cave system he discovered the Scepter in is here,” Skulduggery says. 

 “Gordon had the Scepter under his house the entire  _ time _ ?” Saracen says.

 “Hold up,” Ghastly says. “Careful,  _ carefully now. _ ”

 They inch between the two Cleavers standing guard at the bridge, the field missing them by inches. And then they’re in front of the manor that is Stephanie’s inheritance.

 It’s less… intimidating, than she remembers. And it’s starting to look overrun; vines creep up the side, and there are cracks she doesn’t remember being there. Gordon would be offended to see the manor in such a state. She smiles at the thought.

 The front door is guarded by a Cleaver. No way they can squeeze past him. 

 “There’s a trap door into the wine cellar,” Stephanie murmurs, and they come around to the side of the house. A Cleaver stands guard here too.

 “There’s another at the back door,” Saracen says.

 “The other Cleavers can’t see him from here,” Ghastly muses. “But the ones around the perimeter can if they turn around.”

 “We’ll have to risk it,” Skulduggery replies. “Easy, now.”

 Stephanie, who has no other option than to shuffle along, lets them move her towards the Cleaver from behind.

 “Hold your breath,” Skulduggery says, and they do, as the field intersects and then encompasses the Cleaver.

 Skulduggery reaches out and puts the Cleaver into a chokehold, fast and brutal. The Cleaver struggles, and they wait, wait for his air to run out.

 Except it doesn’t, and as the Cleaver pulls out a knife, Stephanie realises something has gone very wrong.

 “Change of plan,” Saracen says grimly, stealing the knife and cutting the Cleaver’s throat. Stephanie flinches, and Ghastly stops the spray of blood passing the shield with a fist of air, and they’re all stuck in the shield like sardines in an increasingly bloody can as the Cleaver’s body jerks and spurts and then finally, blessedly, stills. Stephanie swallows the vomit that threatens to ruin several perfectly nice jackets. They all take a second.

 “Why wasn’t he going down?” Ghastly asks, releasing the blood onto the dirt.

 “I don’t know,” Skulduggery says. “That hold should have knocked him out-”

 “What the  _ fuck _ ,” Saracen says suddenly, dropping the knife in shock, and Stephanie watches as the body starts jerking in his arms, the slash across the throat stitching itself back together-

 “Zombie,” Ghastly spits, and Skulduggery, so quickly she misses it, kicks the knife into his hand and brute forces the blade through the Cleaver’s neck, raggedly severing the head from the body as Ghastly reaches out again, limiting the mist of blood to the stump.

 She does throw up then, right on Skulduggery’s jacket, because Jesus  _ Christ _ .

 “Serpine,” Saracen says in disgust like a curse, as Ghastly and him very carefully stuff the body in the hedge running along the wall. 

 Skulduggery takes off his jacket very delicately. “I’d say Wreath has been helping him with a lot more than just the Grotesquery. Valkyrie?”

 “I’m fine,” she grimaces.

 He balls the jacket up and stuffs it in the hedge as well, and then kneels down to pick the trap door, pulling out a little set of lock picks. 

 “I don’t like this,” Ghastly murmurs.

 “We’ll be fine,” Skulduggery says absently. There’s a gentle click and they step forward to encompass the door within the field. Skulduggery very carefully lifts it open and when no zombie Cleavers leap out at them, Ghastly goes in, then Saracen, and then Stephanie. Skulduggery climbs in and closes the door shut behind them.

 The wine cellar is dusty and (surprise, surprise)  full of bottles. 

 “No Cleavers,” Saracen confirms, and they tread carefully. 

 She never went in the wine cellar as a kid. It freaked her out a little. It was always dark, and musty, and on one memorable occasion, a bat. Now though, she wonders just how much these wines would be worth in the old world, thinks about how they’ve been sitting and waiting for the last decade.

 They come to the staircase, and they carefully, awkwardly, ascend, until they’re all hovering on the little landing.

 “Saracen?” Skulduggery says.

 Skulduggery looks around. “This landing is clear.”

 “How…?” Stephanie asks, staring.

 “Saracen Rue knows things,” Saracen grins, tapping his nose.

 “He has X-ray vision,” Skulduggery says flatly. 

 “We  _ talked _ about this,” Saracen splutters, and Ghastly shushes him as they creep across the hallway.

 “Gordon kept all his notes in his study, upstairs,” Skulduggery says, and Saracen looks up.

 “No one up there,” he says. “No one at all, actually.”

 “This isn’t right,” Ghastly says. “There should be Cleavers inside the house.”

 “Maybe we got lucky,” Skulduggery says. “Maybe they’re on vacation.”

 “Cleavers don’t take vacation,” Ghastly starts to say, and then exhales. “No. I’m not doing this.”

 “It’s eerie though, isn’t it?” Saracen says. “Properly spooky.”

 “Let’s split up,” Skulduggery says. “You and Saracen take the bottom floor, search for anything Serpine might have left behind. Valkyrie and I will take upstairs. Buzz me if you find anything.”

 They split apart; Ghastly and Saracen leave the cloaking sphere, and Skulduggery and Stephanie head upstairs. The staircase creaks, just like she remembers it doing. The paintings aren’t as weird as she remembers, though. Gordon had better taste than she thought.  

 They come to the study door and carefully let themselves in.

 “I’ll search the desk,” Skulduggery says, kneeling to a pile of books on the floor. 

  Stephanie runs her hands along the bookshelf, scanning the titles. Most of them are fiction novels, peppered with historical accounts. She would have killed for these books only a few months ago. To have the complete set of  _ The Chronicles of Narnia _ ? Priceless. But, as much as it pains her, they have to be left where they sit in a layer of thick dust, like that wine; waiting.

 As an adult, knowing this house belongs to her- she thought as a child it was just Gordon being whimsical Gordon, but now she has to wonder. Did Gordon plan on introducing her into this world? Would she have grown up, living a second life? 

 A leather bound book without a title catches her attention, strikingly classy amongst the collection of torrid horror novels, and she goes to take it out. It doesn’t move. At first, she attributes it to how tightly it’s squeezed in amongst the other books, and then when she yanks it, it sticks out at a forty five degree angle, and-

 The wall opens.

 No  _ way _ .

Skulduggery looks up as the wall swings open to reveal a room lined with shelves, filled to bursting with books and boxes and items both strange and achingly familiar- an old mobile phone sits on top of a box, and there’s an IPad. A stone sits on a table in the middle.

 “Gordon always had style,” Skulduggery murmurs.

She steps in. The soft sigils lighting the room blaze, and she comes to the table that seems to be the centerpiece, a blue jewel, enclosed in a golden claw cradle. It glows stronger and stronger as she comes forward, and then, abruptly, there’s a man in the room with her, startling her so badly her heart skips a beat.

 Portly, and stout, wearing a worn pair of slacks and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and Gordon Edgeley turns around to look at her.

 “Stephanie?” he asks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO! ty as always for the lovely comments and all the kudos!
> 
> now, this was meant to be one giant mega chapter, but in the end, it's been split into 2 slightly shorter than usual chapters. the second part will be up within a few days- i'm finishing it off now!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon catches up. A storm is brewing. 
> 
> (Everything goes to shit.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Mooncactus for the wonderful beta job!

Stephanie and Gordon stare at each other. She doesn’t know what to say. Here stands a man long dead, a man whose face, just like her mother’s, she had forgotten. His face is so familiar she tears up, and then there’s a hand on her shoulder as Skulduggery joins her.

 “Uh,” Gordon says again, clearly confused. “Who are you?”

 “Gordon,” Skulduggery says. “It’s been a long time.”

 “Skulduggery?” Gordon says. “Is that you? Since when do you have a face? And why is my niece all grown up and crying?”

 Skulduggery and Stephanie look at each other, and then Stephanie looks at Gordon.

 “You left this house to me in your will,” she says eventually, rubbing her eyes.

 Gordon stares at her. “No.”

 “I’m afraid,” Skulduggery says, “You and I have yet another thing in common besides our love of pulp fiction. Nefarian Serpine killed you. Over ten years ago, in fact.”

 “Then- the Scepter-”

 “Serpine won,” Stephanie says thickly. “Gordon, he took over the world.”

 “My God,” Gordon says dumbly. 

 “As much as I’d love to say I planned for this,” Skulduggery says, “Finding your Echo Stone was quite an accident. Serpine plans to bring the Faceless Ones back using the Grotesquery, and we have reason to believe we can figure out how to stop him from reading your notes.”

 Gordon blinks at Skulduggery. Skulduggery waits patiently, his hand reassuring on her shoulder.

 “This is… a lot to take in,” he says eventually.

“Why don’t I leave you both to catch up?” Skulduggery says quietly. He squeezes Stephanie’s shoulder, and steps out of the room.

 Stephanie and Gordon go back to staring at eachother.

 “You’re taller than me now,” he says suddenly, and this breaks the ice, somehow, has Stephanie laughing. She steps forward to give him a hug, but-

 Her hands pass right through him.

 “I’m nothing more than a very handsome arrangement of light waves, I’m afraid,” he says sadly. Stephanie ignores this, hugs his image anyway.

 “Oh,” Gordon says in surprise.

 “I don’t care,” she mumbles. She should feel stupid, holding the air, but…

 Gordon raises his arms and hugs her back. They both laugh.

 “So, Serpine, eh?” Gordon says, graciously not commenting as she dots her eyes.

 “Yeah.”

 “Bring me up to speed,” Gordon says. “From the start. Or rather, my end. How is my wonderful brother and his stolen bride?”

 She hesitates. “Dad’s fine.”

 “Of course he is,” Gordon grins. “He has Melissa.”

 Her expression must falter then, because he frowns. “Stephanie? What is it?”

 “Mum died,” Stephanie says softly. “When Serpine took over.”

 “Oh, Stephanie,” Gordon says quietly, and the tears are back. “I’m so sorry.”

 “It’s okay,” she says quickly, rubbing her eyes again. “I still have Dad. We were lucky, we didn’t get split up.”

 “Tell me,” he says gently, and she does, all of it; the first few horrible weeks as magic warred against magic, all the way to here and now. Gordon, as a great storyteller, is a great listener as well. He makes the right noises at the right moments, and when she tells him about how she punched Marr, he actually cheers.

 “And here we are,” she finishes.

 “My niece, a sorcerer and all grown up,” he says proudly.

 “I wouldn’t say a  _ sorcerer _ ,” Stephanie hastens to say.

 He looks at her shrewdly. “People are bad- not magic, Stephanie. Or should I say, Valkyrie?”   
 “Only in public,” she says. “It was never my name. I just picked it randomly.”

 “Names have power,” Gordon says. “And it suits you. More than you realise, I think.”

 “A winged warrior who shepherds the dead?” she says dryly.

 “Well,” Gordon says. “All you need is the wings. You have the warrior part down, and they don’t get much deader than Skulduggery, do they?”

 She smiles, and he smiles back.  

 “Gordon,” she begins, but then there’s a crashing noise. 

 “We have company,” yells Saracen, and Skulduggery appears in the doorway.

 “We need to go,” Skulduggery says.

 “Stephanie-  _ Valkyrie _ ,” Gordon corrects himself. She smiles. “Tell me something.”

 “Yes?”

 “When I died. Was there a national day of mourning?”

 She laughs, and he looks sour. 

“Well, you could have at least  _ pretended _ ,” he says dourly. “Do you see that box, over there? With the gold trim?”

 She reaches over, takes it, looks at him expectantly.

 “I suspect things are about to go downhill,” Gordon says, and there’s another crash now. “Put the stone in that box. It’s not as flashy as the Cradle here, but it will still keep it charged.”

 “What-”

 “Serpine can’t know what I know. And now, you can take me with you.”

 She nods.

 “Try not to jostle me too much,” he says. “I get terrible motion sickness.” And as she plucks the stone from the Cradle, he disappears. She puts it in the box, locks it shut and slides it in her jacket, just as Ghastly yells in muffled pain a few walls over. Skulduggery doesn’t even say a word, just grabs her and hauls her out into the hallway.

 A woman in dark black leather with deep red hair flips herself over the railing of the staircase, knives in hand, easily dodging as Ghastly tries to rabbit punch her. Saracen shouts something wordless as he comes flying through the wall, and a man with a long, silver ponytail and a bored expression steps through.

 “Fuck  _ this _ ,” Saracen mutters, dodging another punch. “Fighting Enhanced mages is a  _ joke _ -”

 Ponytail knees him in the ribs, and Saracen grunts as he’s sent flying into the ceiling and then smashes back onto the floor.

 Ghastly, meanwhile, is locked in a complex dance with Red, who wields the knives like they’re a part of her. She neatly sidesteps a fireball Ghastly manages to get off in the tight space, and almost slips when a sudden patch of ice appears beneath her feet, yelping when Skulduggery throws his arm wide and sends the two unfamiliar mages crashing through the window.

 “Quick,  _ quick _ ,” he says, hauling Saracen to his knees, and they all run down the stairs, Skulduggery pulling out the cloaking sphere once more. Just as he goes to turn it, another man rounds the corner. Clean shaven, wearing a blazer, he looks like he could be a lawyer.

 “Going somewhere?” he asks, and Ghastly and Skulduggery both move as one; as Blazer swipes his hand up and the floorboards turn to a metal spike, Stephanie and Saracen are shoved safely to the side by a wall of air. Another flick of the man’s hand and the roof cracks and shatters down, iron stalagmites, and now Saracen is pulling Stephanie out of the way as Skulduggery dives for the man’s legs and Ghastly tackles him from the top.

 “Get her out of here,” Skulduggery says urgently, and Saracen pulls Stephanie to the side, dragging her out towards the back door. She struggles to keep up, and then the door flies open, and the woman steps through. Saracen is already shoving Stephanie to the side as a knife shoots towards them, so fast she knows without his X-ray vision, Saracen could never have seen it coming, and he drags her back to her feet as they run straight towards her.

 “Come on,  _ come on, _ ” Saracen mutters, and then there’s an explosion that sends shockwaves through the house, sends the three of them flying to the ground.

 “Here’s  _ Dexter! _ ” Dexter says from the busted door way. 

 “ _ The Shining _ ?” Saracen says, spitting blood. Stephanie groans, pulling herself up. “Really, Dex?”

 “Look, there are only so many electricity puns you can make before they get old,” he protests, and his hand flashes as he suddenly tosses something sharp, something  _ volatile _ , and Stephanie ducks just in time to watch as Red, who had been behind her, catches it full in the chest and there’s another explosion and the smell of scorched skin.

 Saracen pulls her up and they race outside with Dexter just in time to see Ghastly and Skulduggery both smash through a window, rolling and coming up alongside them.

 “Where’s Erskine?” Ghastly pants, a cut on his forehead gushing.

 “I don’t know,” Dexter says helplessly. “All the Cleavers just disappeared, and then the Diablerie were there-”

 “Move,  _ move _ ,” Saracen says, looking at the house, and Stephanie watches, quite helplessly, as as the woman, with a burnt, furious face, smashes through the ground floor window as the two men burst through the wall. The Dead Men move back in time just as Blazer gestures, and bullets spit out from the brick walls, thunking to a stop mid air as Skulduggery splays his hands wide.

 “We need Fletcher,” he says, gritting his teeth as the house’s wall disintegrates, until the air in front of them is thick with it, impossible to see through. Saracen looks away to get his communicator, and even as Skulduggery’s parting the debris like water, the woman is leaping through the tiny gap of air he must have left, and a knife is flicking through the air into Saracen’s neck.

 It’s chaos, thick and immediate. Dexter screams, rough and bestial, and even as Ghastly’s shouting  _ no _ at him, and the air lights up, an explosion that throws the Dead Men apart.

 Stephanie lands against a tree, almost blacking out as her head smacks against the trunk, falls to the ground, boneless, struggling to pull herself up, patting the box in her coat pocket; it’s still safe, thank God. The woman’s corpse is smoking in the bush, Dexter is wrestling with Ponytail, and Skulduggery is racing towards her as Ghastly uses rocks and air to block Blazer’s magic. 

 “Valkyrie?” he says, voice worried, muffled; she realises her ears are ringing, and she nods, blinking, staring at Saracen’s lifeless body, which has landed next to her, his eyes wide and his handsome face vacant.

 “Saracen-” she says dumbly, and Skulduggery pulls her up.

 “Where the  _ fuck _ is Erskine,” Skulduggery says furiously. Another explosion, and Dexter yells triumphantly as Ponytail’s arm soars into the sky. Skulduggery gestures sharply, and the earth slips and slides from beneath Dexter’s foot, sending him rolling just in time to prevent his head from being caved in as Ponytail lunges forward, a punch that sends a shockwave through the earth, a force that has Stephanie stumbling.

 “Dexter!” Skulduggery says sharply, but Dexter turns the roll into a flip back onto his feet, and his hands light up; another explosion that leaves white in Stephanie’s vision, and all of them stop to blink, except Skulduggery, of course. Without eyes, there’s nothing to blind, and Skulduggery reaches into the air and hooks his fingers, and grunts, twisting his body, sending Ponytail slamming back into the house, and judging from the speed and power, out the other side.

 “Are you injured?” he says urgently.

 “No, I’m fine,” Stephanie begins to say, and he’s already pulling her to the cover of the forest, passing her the sphere.

 “Run,” he says. “I’ll find you.  _ Run. _ ”

 It activates as he twists the air, and then he’s gone, and she should run, she  _ should _ , but she can’t leave them, she  _ can’t _ .

 Fletcher. They need  _ Fletcher. _

__ Stuffing the sphere in her pocket, she runs through the forest back towards the front of the mansion, where they left Erskine and Fletcher. She can hear the snap  _ crack _ of explosions, and watches as Ponytail, on the other side of the house, sits up, a scowl on his face, and punches through the wall like its paper, his stump of an arm cauterised shut.

 She can’t see Fletcher and Erskine, she can’t see them  _ anywhere _ -

 She goes deeper into the forest, wondering if Fletcher, the coward, has just up and run, has left them there, and taken Erskine with him, but then her foot hooks on something, and she nearly trips, and-

 It’s Fletcher’s bracelet. She picks it up.

 And there, the bushes- Erskine.

 She goes to move forward, to include him within the field, but as Erskine steps in her direction, she sees dark across his knuckles, sees how his cheek is black with a bruise.

 “Always hated Teleporters,” Erskine mutters to himself, and she steps out of the way on an instinct that’s ahead of her own thoughts, watches him take off at a run towards the house, her gut uneasy, a suspicion growing, and as she steps towards the brush he moved from…

 Fletcher. Unconscious. Bleeding from the mouth.

 “Fuck!” She curses, and starts sprinting back to the house, trying to catch up with Erskine, but he’s gone. She bursts into the open space, still invisible, just in time to see the house explode, and her heart catches in her chest, the heat scorching, the wind screaming.

 The smoke is thick, rushing past her. She coughs, eyes streaming, stumbling through the smoke, trying to find Skulduggery. Someone rushes past her, in and out of the cloaking field, and she reaches out as she sees it’s Erskine, running towards two hulking figures that have to be Ponytail and Ghastly. Out of the corner of her eyes, someone- it must be Skulduggery, she thinks, tall and skinny- lifts his arms and sends the smoke eddying into the trees  at the same time that there’s a strangled cry.

 Ghastly. The smoke is gone, and Ghastly is gasping as Erskine steps back, shaking, dropping a bloodied dagger onto the ground, a wound deep at the base of Ghastly’s skull, and Ghastly falls to the ground. 

 The battlefield freezes. Ponytail laughs, and Blazer looks satisfied, reassured.

 “Nice of you to finally help out,” Blazer says to Erskine, and Erskine looks furious, sick, and Dexter and Skulduggery are just  _ standing _ there.

 Tanith’s voice in her head: _ Wait _ . 

 Ponytail laughs again, and goes to kick Ghastly’s body. Stephanie gasps, already seeing what will happen, he’s going to kick Ghastly’s body  _ apart,  _ send his blood and bones flying, and Erskine lets out a wordless grunt of fury, clenching his fist before Ponytail can do it; the air shimmers, Ponytail’s throat flexing and crushing.

 “You do  _ not _ laugh at this man,” Erskine says tightly. “Do you understand me?”

 “Easy, Erskine,” Blazer says. “Let Krav go.”

 “Shut the fuck up, Jaron,” Erskine spits. “I take orders from Serpine. Not  _ you _ .” But his fingers loosen, and Krav falls to the ground, gasping for air.

 “Much of a muchness,” Jaron shrugs.

 Dexter moves first; Stephanie watches, frozen, as he sprints past Skulduggery, who is as still as stone.

 Dexter throws another explosion, but Erskine is catching each one in air, enclosing it.

 “ _ Traitor _ !” Dexter screams.

 Erskine twists to avoid a projectile explosion, and Stephanie is suddenly aware of a great wind blowing, a storm brewing.

 “I don’t  _ want  _ to do this,” Erskine shouts at Dexter, and throws his arm wide; Dexter hits a wall of air and is sent crashing back past Skulduggery. “I have what I came for! Surrender, before I have to kill you too!”

 The wind grows stronger now, and Skulduggery very slowly adjusts the brim of his hat, walks across the grass towards them.

 “Don’t.” Erskine says. “ _ Don’t. _ ”

 Skulduggery ignores this, just keeps walking, and the winds are reaching cyclone levels. She sees is Skulduggery moving his hand in circles, and she has to grab onto a tree as dirt begins slipping out from under her, branches cracking.

 “Get us the fuck out of here,” Erskine snaps at Krav, who reaches into his pocket. The wind reaches gale force, and as they all start to lift off the ground, trees snapping and dirt flying, the three men crackle and disappear, and it’s just Skulduggery, Dexter, and her, that storm shrieking and blowing.

 “Skulduggery _!” _ she shouts, but he doesn’t respond; she’s stuck in the cloaking field. She drags herself back to the ground, and plant her feet in the earth, lets the dirt and rocks slide over her feet and grip her. She takes the sphere out of her pocket, throws it away.

 “ _ Skulduggery!” _ she screams, and then, everything is still; the trees sway with the suddenness of it, branches and leaves and dirt falling to the ground.

 He looks at her. She sees one half of his facade is torn away, showing the skeleton beneath, and she pulls her feet from her makeshift dirt shackles, approaching him.

 “I told you to run,” he says quietly.  

 “I couldn’t just  _ leave _ you here,” she says. “I went to get Fletcher, but Erskine knocked him out-”

 “Shit,” Dexter says. “ _ Shit. _ ” And then he’s running past Stephanie into the forest.

 Skulduggery just stands there, staring at the smoking ruins of the house. 

 “What are we going to do?” Stephanie asks. Ghastly’s corpse in front of her; Saracen’s corpse behind her. Erskine turned traitor. The question rings futile, insignificant.

 Skulduggery says nothing. Dexter comes running back out of the trees.

 “Fletcher’s gone. Erskine must have taken him,” Dexter says, and as he comes next to Stephanie, she realises he’s crying, the tears streaming from his face unremarkable, unnoticed, like the sun in the sky and the wind in the threes.

 “He’s been working with them all along,” Skulduggery says softly. “It was him who let Caelan out. It was him who told the Diablerie we were here.”

 “ _ Hey! _ ” Dexter says sharply. “We need to get out of here. We need a plan. We need to get back to Ballycroy, before a fucking  _ army of Cleavers _ ambushes them!”

 “I’m going to kill him,” Skulduggery says. “I’m going to  _ burn _ him.”

 “Did you  _ hear  _ me?” Dexter says, loudly, anger replacing the tears. “Serpine is about to come down on us like a ton of fucking  _ bricks _ . Serpine knows where we  _ are _ . Serpine’s  _ won _ . We need to move. Otherwise it’s going to be Anton and Corrival next.”

 Skulduggery still says nothing, and Dexter curses, going to Saracen’s body, holding it. Stephanie approaches Skulduggery.

 It’s a terrible quiet, the quiet not before the storm, but before a murder, the sucked gasp of a dying man.

 “He’s right,” she says gently, her hand on his forearm. “Skulduggery, we need a plan.”

 “We have a plan,” he says, turning to her.

 “In case you just fucking  _ missed  _ all of that,” Dexter says from behind them, furious, “Saracen and Ghastly are  _ dead _ . Erskine is a fucking  _ turncoat _ . And our Teleporter is  _ gone _ .”

 “It doesn’t matter,” Skulduggery says. 

 “What do you mean,  _ it doesn’t matter _ !” Dexter spits.

 “I mean,” Skulduggery says sharply, “That Ghastly and Saracen wouldn’t want us just standing around  _ yelling _ at each other, when there’s a perfectly good piece of  _ shit _ whose neck needs a sharp  _ knife _ .” 

 “But we need to warn Corrival,” Stephanie says desperately. “They need to know what’s coming.”

 Skulduggery shakes his head. “If Erskine wanted Serpine to know where we are, we would have been ambushed years ago. We need to bury our dead. We need to recuperate. And then we need to strike.” He glances at Stephanie. “Help me dig,” he says softly, and they leave Dexter there, holding the dead body of his lover, striding to the edges of the forest. On the way, Skulduggery bends to pick up the cloaking sphere from where she threw it.

 The two of them work quickly, efficiently, and as her heart rate slows, she feels ill, takes relief in the rocking movement as they shovel out piles of dirt with their magic.

 She hadn’t known Saracen well, but he had been nice enough to her, had tried to protect her. But  _ Ghastly _ . It aches, a familiar ache. But she’s not a little girl anymore. There’s a lot more at stake. 

 Later, she tells herself. If Skulduggery can function, so can she.

 “What are we going to do?” she says quietly to Skulduggery. 

 “Didn’t you hear me?” he says, just as quietly, but far more grimly. “I’m going to murder him.”

 She doesn’t bother asking  _ who _ . It’s a plural him, not singular.

 “But how are we going to get back to Ballycroy?” she says. “We don’t have time to waste.”

 “A Teleportation Circuit,” he says. 

 “The nearest one is a full day’s walk away,” Stephanie frowns. 

 “Haggard,” he reminds her, and they both step back. The grave is deep, and they go across to Ghastly’s body. The air is still; the night sky clear and pretty. A night far nicer than it has any right to be.

 Skulduggery pauses there, a moment of silence, and then bends down, picks Ghastly up in a fireman’s lift. They pass Dexter, who is sitting in silence, back to the grave. Skulduggery takes Ghastly’s ring off, and then covers him, pile by pile, until he’s hidden from view.

 Stephanie doesn’t know what to say. 

 “He would have hated this,” Skulduggery murmurs. “He always wanted to be buried by the sea.”

 “We can come back,” Stephanie says. “Once all this is done.”

 “I grew up with him,” Skulduggery tells her. “He never made fun of my stutter. And he always charged me half price for my suits.”

 She reaches out, slowly, and he curls his fingers through hers. Minutes pass, precious minutes, and then Skulduggery looks off into the forest, head jerking up.

 “Cleavers,” he says, and they leave Ghastly there, amongst the trees.

 “Dexter,” Skulduggery says, as they come back into the open air. “We need to get to China’s. She can teleport us back to Ballycroy.”

 “Fine,” Dexter says wearily, but he doesn’t move. 

 “We can’t take him with us,” Skulduggery says, gently. “We need to bury him.”

 “Nah” Dexter mutters. “He always wanted to be cremated, remember?” He looks at Stephanie. And a smile quirks his lips. “So he could be hot, even in death. Idiot.”

 Dexter sighs, and carefully lays Saracen back down; he pulls off Saracen’s ring, steps back, and Skulduggery clicks his fingers; Saracen catches alight.

 “Idiot,” Dexter says, staring at his body. “He was such a stupid  _ idiot _ .”

 Stephanie puts her hand on his back, and for a moment, Dexter looks so incredibly tired. And then he nods.

 And off into the forest they go, leaving a funeral pyre behind them.

 

-

 

It’s physically a short walk back to Haggard. But emotionally, it’s a  _ very _ long walk, stuck inside the cloaking field, and the silence is oppressive.

The only comfort is the box in her jacket, the family member so unexpectedly returned to her. She can’t wait to bring the Echo Stone to her dad. A family reunion, something so wonderful in such a dark time. 

 They come to the edge of Haggard. No alarms sound; they pass the Cleavers, pass the sorcerers still roaming the street. They walk straight through town like they own the place. They pass Desmond’s building, and Stephanie looks at it longingly.

 Soon, she thinks.

 The town is so much smaller than she remembers. Then they come to China’s studio. They wait outside, and Skulduggery presses his finger to a spot on left shoulder. Twenty minutes pass; the cloaking sphere starts contracting. Just as Stephanie starts to worry they’re going to be exposed in the middle of the street, China’s carriage comes down the road. She steps out, looking very bored and very disinterested, and as beautiful as Stephanie remembers. They step aside to let her unlock the door, and follow her in.

 “This had better be important,” China says, closing the door behind her, just as the  cloaking sphere gives out entirely. “Valkyrie, glad to see you’re alive.”

 “Erskine betrayed us,” Skulduggery says. “Saracen and Ghastly are dead, and Erskine has Fletcher.”

 China blinks.”I see. Let’s continue this downstairs. Tea, anyone?”

 

-

 

The mug of tea is warm in her hands; they sit in a little lounge room, many meters below the studio. Dexter nurses a coffee, staring blankly ahead, as Skulduggery brings China up to speed, and Gordon  _ more _ up to speed. 

 “I can calibrate the Circuit to send you all straight to the Sanctuary,” China says eventually, settling her cup of tea back onto its saucer. “Those rings you picked up will make things a great deal quicker.”

 “I can’t believe Erskine betrayed you,” Gordon murmurs, from his seat next to Stephanie. 

 “Gordon,” Skulduggery says. “Do you have any clue what he might be doing with the Grotesquery?”

 “I do, actually,” Gordon says thoughtfully. “Have you heard of an Isthmus Anchor?”

 “No,” Skulduggery replies. “Go on.”

 “Shunters use them,” Gordon explains. “It can be anything, in theory. It acts as an anchor when they travel to another dimension, something from this dimension - from home - to hone in on when they need to come back.”

 “It’s an anchor for the Faceless Ones,” Stephanie realises. 

 “That would explain some of the sigils on the Gate,” China says. “Several clusters refer to something with anchoring properties.”

 “But why does Serpine need the mortal, then?” Skulduggery says. 

 “The mortal?” Gordon says.

 “Serpine kidnapped a mortal from Haggard who is supposedly descended from the Ancient Ones,” China says. “An interesting concept. I suspect the blood must be part of the energy required to activate the Gate.”

 “Gordon?” Skulduggery says, and Stephanie looks over, sees how her uncle’s face is white. “What’s wrong?”

 “A descendant of the Ancient Ones?” Gordon repeats.

 “Yeah,” Stephanie says slowly. “We were gonna pick him up on our way through Serpine’s Sanctum.”

 “Desmond,” Gordon says. 

 Stephanie blinks. “What?”

 “Our family,” Gordon says listlessly. “We’re descended from the Ancient Ones. Grandpa used to talk about it, all the time as kids. Desmond always thought it was just stories, but when I met Skulduggery…”

 “Why didn’t you tell me?” Skulduggery says in surprise.

 “What was the point?” Gordon says. “I could never do a lick of magic, and I could never  _ prove  _ anything.”

 “Wait, Serpine has my  _ dad _ ?” Stephanie says in shock. 

 “Unless Fergus has moved to Haggard, Desmond is the only man it could be,” Gordon says grimly; something icy slides deep into her, and she realises someone is breathing too fast. It’s her.

 “We’ll get him back,” Skulduggery says quickly. “He’s safe, remember? Wreath told us- Serpine needs him alive.”

 Gordon tries to put his hand over hers, but he can’t, of course, and her breath hitches. She’s starting to cry.

 “Valkyrie,” Skulduggery says, coming to kneel by her. She’s shaking. “Valkyrie, look at me. He’s going to be fine.”

 He’s taken his facade off, but she looks into those eye sockets, and something in her calms as he lays his hands over hers, squeezes tight.

 “I’ll get the Circuit working, shall I?” China says crisply. “Valkyrie, come help me. It’s been a while since I had a competent assistant.”

 The command in China’s voice strikes that part of her long used to obeying her, and Stephanie stands up mechanically. Skulduggery lets go of her, and she follows China out into that little wallway, down the halls.

 Serpine has her father.

 China’s heels, click-clacking on the floorboards.

 Serpine has her father.

 The sound of her own blood, heavy and loud in her ears.

 Serpine has her  _ father _ .

 “Valkyrie,” China says, and she blinks, comes back to herself; they’re in front of those stones, the stones that took her away from Haggard. It feels like it was years ago.

 China carefully bends to one knee, taking out a scalpel. “I need you to change the redirection cluster over there so that the loop breaks- add a new branch on. Use Poincaré’s template, but leave the location sigil blank.”

China passes her the scalpel, and Stephanie kneels a few stones away, creating a new cluster that links with the redirection sigils. She works on automatic, everything narrowing down to feeling of the scalpel against rock. 

 Serpine has her father.

 She knows Poincaré’s template well, but even so, she gets the angle off on the sigil for speed by a few distinct angles. Quite unconsciously, Stephanie reaches out, calls to the stone; it flexes and creaks and then smooths over her mistake, fresh and new.

 Without looking up, China says, “Impressive work.”

 This genuine admission has Stephanie so taken aback that she looks up, her father momentarily out of her mind.

 “Don’t look so surprised,” China says mildly, etching in a sigil. 

 “I can count the number of compliments you’ve given me on one hand,” Stephanie reminds her, and China does look up then, and smiles. The smile is genuine, and- perhaps?- a little regretful.

 “It wouldn’t look very good if the woman in charge of keeping the Empire’s technology running was seen giving compliments to mortals,” she says. A pause. And then: “I can’t say the idea of having children has ever appealed to me. The mess, the crying, the milk bottles? Disgusting. And all that… vulnerability. Children were never something in my life plan, even before the Uprising.

 “So when I first took you on as my apprentice,” China continues, “It was out of respect, and perhaps nostalgia, for Gordon. You and him have the exact same frown. It was very amusing.”

 Stephanie sits there, having forgotten about the Circuit, stunned by what is, by China’s standards, outrageous sentimentality.

 “I didn’t intend to involve you in the Arbiter’s plans,” China tells her. “But you had such a latent  _ potential  _ for magic. You picked everything up so quickly. It made sense, in the way a good plan does. But I didn’t… relish the thought. You had, against my better judgement, become someone I cared for.”

 Stephanie stares at her.

 “And then, between the Gate and Marr’s arrival, and I knew I couldn’t protect you any longer. It… makes me very glad to see you alive and not just well, but  _ flourishing _ , Valkyrie.”

 It’s all a bit too much; Stephanie gets teary.

 “I hope you’re not expecting a hug,” China says dryly. “That little speech filled my emotional quota for the next decade.”

 She laughs, wipes her eyes. “Yeah, I figured,” she says, and China’s mouth twitches before she looks back to the sigil beneath her.

 “This Circuit isn’t going to calibrate itself, Valkyrie,” China says, and they get back to work.

 

-

 

It takes them a few hours; Stephanie’s knees ache by the end of it, but it’s a welcome ache, a familiar one, as comforting as stepping into her father’s apartment on a Sunday morning, and at that thought, her chest grows tight once more.

 She stands up, and they survey their work; China presses a point on her arm, and a few minutes later, Skulduggery and Dexter walk in, Gordon clipping through the wall behind them as he follows the stone Skulduggery holds in his hand.

 “We’ll notify you when it’s time,” Skulduggery says. “Thank you, China.”

 “Always a pleasure, Skulduggery,” China replies. “Though I do hope the next time I see you, you’re bearing far better news.”

 Skulduggery and Dexter step into the Circuit, and she turns to Gordon. 

 The two of them smile at each other, soft, and a little intimate; Stephanie looks away, pretends to busy herself with a graze on her palm.

 “Farewell, my dear,” China says.

 “It’s a shame we don’t have more time together,” Gordon says sincerely.

 “There’s never enough time, fickle beast that it is,” China agrees. “At the end of all of this, you and I will have to sit down over a nice cup of coffee.”

 “I can’t drink coffee anymore, China,” Gordon reminds her.

 “Well,” China says, smiling wolfishly. “It’s a good thing I was being metaphorical.”

 Gordon laughs even as his image flushes, and Skulduggery closes the box; Gordon disappears.

Before Stephanie can follow the two men onto the Circuit, she reaches out and encloses China in a hug.

 China stiffens beneath her initially, but then she relaxes, warm arms encircling Stephanie’s back, and it’s with a start that Stephanie realises- even in heels, China is shorter than her.

 “Good luck, Valkyrie,” China says, and then her nose wrinkles. “I do wish you’d get around to picking a last name.”

 “It’s not high on my list of priorities,” Stephanie says wryly. 

 “Well, at the very least, I fully expect you to come back and finish your apprenticeship with me after this war,” China tells her. “I’ve invested far too much of my time in you for you to just go galavanting around the countryside with Skulduggery, here.”

 “I’ll try to keep it in mind.”

 “I never got to tell you,” China says. “But your hair looks lovely.”

 Stephanie smiles, and steps up into the Circuit. The symbols begin swimming through the stone, a glow in the room.

 “If you see Serpine,” China calls out, “Give him a beating for me.”

 And then she’s gone, replaced by the Sanctuary’s rock antechamber.

 

-

 

The rough hewn table is bigger, tonight. Too big; it fills the room, it seems, when there are three empty chairs, damning in how they steal the eye.  Skulduggery sits next to her, Dexter on her right. Anton sits next to Corrival, fury and pain on his face.

 Corrival sits with his head in his hands. The look of the bereaved, Stephanie thinks, remembering how her father would sometimes just sit there, late at night, in those early days, when her mother’s death was a fresh wound.

 What are they going to  _ do _ ? She knows logically, her father is one life among many at stake, but...

 “Corrival,” Skulduggery says eventually. “We need to make preparations to move on the Sanctum.”

 Corrival doesn’t reply, for a long moment, and then he sits back in his chair. “Anton, I need you to take over Ravel’s position. In light of his betrayal, I need you to make sure nothing can get in here.”

 “Of course,” Anton says tightly. “I’ll begin right away.”

 “Dexter,” Corrival says. “Go get Ms. Low. Once she’s on her way, go to bed. In the morning, take stock of our weapons. All of them.”

 Dexter nods, and he and Anton leave, and once again, it’s just her, Skulduggery, and Corrival.

 “You have a plan, Skulduggery,” Corrival says, dragging a hand down his face. “What is it?”

 “We need to take the Scepter  _ and _ the Book of Names from Serpine, and then kill him,” Skulduggery says. “The Grotesquery and the Gate are secondary.”

 “How?”

 “We have Tanith and Dexter,” Stephanie says. “And the rings, and the cloaking sphere, and me. A sigil expert.”

 (She has to go. It’s her  _ father _ .)

 “Serpine will have moved the Grotesquery to his Sanctum by now,” Skulduggery says.  “The Gate will be there by the time we arrive. If Tanith and Dexter focus on destroying the Gate while we take out Serpine…”

 “The Diablerie saw you without your facade, Skulduggery,” Corrival reminds him. “Serpine knows you’re coming now. Maybe he’s know all along.”

 “No, he’ll be expecting me to not go, for that very reason, but little does he know, I  _ will _ go.”

 “But what if that’s what he’s expecting?” Corrival points out.

 “But what if that’s what he’s  _ not _ expecting?”

 Corrival groans. “Skulduggery. Work with me here.”

 “I  _ am _ ,” Skulduggery says. “I just saw two of my closest friends get murdered because one of my  _ other _ closest friends  _ betrayed us _ , Corrival. This doesn’t change anything. We still need to move  _ now _ , before Serpine takes the initiative and levels this entire mountain.”

 “I don’t want to lose another son,” Corrival says softly.

 “We don’t have a choice,” Stephanie says gently, seeing the trepidation in his face. 

 “She’s right,” Skulduggery says. “Now is not the time to mourn. You need to have every able bodied person here ready to fight.”

  “We can’t send the refugees here to die,” Corrival says. “We don’t have fields strong enough to protect a mobile army.”

 “But they can be ready for an invasion,” Skulduggery argues.

 “What about sigils?” Stephanie asks, and they both look at her. “Serpine’s sigil network is interconnected across the world. That’s why the rings are so important, right? China could easily set off distractions- like fooling an alarm sensor. She could set off alarms at one side of the Sanctum… and while he’s sending Cleavers there...”

 “You could make him think there’s an army at his door,” Corrival murmurs, and he looks a little less weary, now. “I’ll make contact with China.”

 Tanith appears at the entrance, now, looking somber, and behind that professionalism- sad.

 “Dexter filled me in,” she says, sitting next to Stephanie. “I’m so sorry.”

 “Tanith, I need you to organise all the sorcerers you’ve been training,” Corrival begins.

 “What about the mortals?” Tanith asks.

 “Mortals?”

 She shrugs. “Word got around what I was doing here. I’ve been training a few mortals too.”

 “All of them,” Skulduggery says. “Get all of them.”

 “They need to be ready for invasion,” Corrival says. “Send the most capable to me so I can arrange squadrons and patrols. Tomorrow night, you’ll be accompanying Skulduggery, Valkyrie and Dexter to the Sanctum.”

 “What’s the plan?” Tanith asks, leaning forward.

 “Kill Serpine,” Skulduggery says grimly. “And Erskine, while we’re at it.”

 “Nice,” Tanith nods. “Succinct.”

 Despite her anxiety, despite the stress, Stephanie yawns before she can stop herself, and Corrival looks at her kindly. “Skulduggery, I think you and Valkyrie had better get some rest.”

 “I’ll be right back,” Skulduggery says, standing up.

 “No,” Corrival says firmly. “You too. Get some rest.” 

 “I don’t  _ need _ rest.”

 “Yes, you do,” Corrival says. “That’s an  _ order _ , Skulduggery.”

 Skulduggery stands there for a moment, and then turns away; Stephanie follows him out of the room.

 The long walk back along the empty halls, stripped of distraction, makes it all encompassing; her father, stuck in Serpine’s Sanctum, all alone, like a pig lined up for slaughter. The image makes her feel ill, scared. And there’s Skulduggery next to her, inscrutable. She doesn’t know what to say to him. Offering her condolences just sounds weak next to an insurmountable betrayal, foolish, childish. 

 It’s half selfish, half selfless. She reaches out to him again as they walk, hesitant, looking for something solid. Her fingers entangles with his, and she squeezes tightly, gripping those bones between hers, cold and real and reliable.

 They walk like this in silence. Only two days ago, this contact would have thrilled her, sent her pulse racing, but now? She can almost pretend she isn’t teeteribng on the brink of panic, when she’s touching him. 

 She wonders if it’s having the same effect on him too.

 They come to their doors. She doesn’t want to let go of him. They stand there together. Skulduggery makes no effort to untangle their hands.

 “We’ll rescue him,” he says suddenly. “Your father,” he clarifies, when Stephanie blinks. “You won’t lose him to Serpine too.”

 A fierceness in his voice, an undercurrent of fury. 

 “Promise?” Stephanie says in a small voice. She’s had a very emotional day, she thinks. It’s allowed. 

 “Promise.”

 She does disconnect their fingers, then. But only so she can reach around him, pull those weary bones to her, hold him so tightly she wonders if she might snap him. He buries his face in her hair, the coolness of his teeth on her neck, her heart swelling. Fear? Affection? Both. One thing can be two things, after all, and she aches with it.

 “You better get some rest,” Skulduggery murmurs. It’s the strangest thing, feeling his voice vibrate against her jaw, when there’s no air to channel it.

 She very reluctantly lets him go, and they stand there for a moment, closer than they need to be, and then Skulduggery goes to his door.

 Stephanie wants to say something. She doesn’t know what. A plea. An invitation. 

 It bursts out of her: “I can’t sleep.”

 He stops, turns his head to her.

 “Just… Keep me company?” She says, plaintive, and it’s not a lie. “Please?”

 “Of course,” he murmurs, and she opens her door, and they step in together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here I finally earn the major character death archive warning lmfao!!!!!! hope y'all enjoyed!!!!!! 
> 
> next chapter we'll get a little reprieve before, and then it's on to the Grand Finale, and then the epilogue.
> 
> i also spent like 4 hours putting together the soundtrack for this fic! it's mostly instrumental with a few songs thrown in. I'll put it up once the fic is done, and will also be publishing a little summary of each track's matching spot/relevance. I would put it up now but it's a little.. spoilery.. lol
> 
> see you soon!!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The breath before the fall, or;
> 
> Time to pop the Biggest Bottles and then drink them very, very quickly before Things Get Serious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is late everyone!!! And thanks as usual to the wonderful Mooncactus.
> 
> The rest of the fic is written, and all that's left to do is edit!!!! See you guys at the end of all this babey!!!

They both lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The air is warm, the sigils glowing, and Skulduggery is a silent shadow next to her.

 Yesterday, lying on a bed next to him would have had her red, had her blushing, but she had sat down, and had just… looked at him. Without a word, he had known what she was asking, as he laid next to her, their sides brushing, and here they are, the silence thick, heavy. She feels a little calmer, now she knows they have a plan, but.

 When Stephanie had lost her mother, it had been this same silence, but she had been so  _ lonely _ . At least now, there’s someone here with her, someone mourning with her. Because he  _ is _ mourning, underneath the fury that radiates from him, she can see it in the rigid lines of him. Can see how his fingers are knotted, how he tilts his head slightly to the left.

 “It doesn’t get any easier,” he murmurs. 

 Stephanie turns to look at him, and says nothing. His voice hangs in the air.

 “I should have known,” Skulduggery continues. “Things weren’t adding up. I was too  _ angry _ . I still  _ am _ too angry.”

 “It wasn’t your fault,” Stephanie says. The words are trite, but he turns to look at her.

 “Perhaps not. But if I were paying more attention…”

 She pulls his hand from the knot his fingers are forming, holds it, and he sighs. 

 “What are you going to do?” Stephanie says, desperately trying to think of anything else, anything than the thought of her father, all alone. “After all of this.”

 “I don’t know,” Skulduggery says. “It would be nice to return to my gumshoe roots. But even after we defeat Serpine, it’ll be a long time before we can relax again.” He pauses. “What about you?”

 There’s a question, in his voice, a question beyond the one he’s asking.

 “I don’t know,” Stephanie says, and smiles despite herself, despite all of this fear crinkled inside of her. “I like sigil magic, but I don’t know if I want it as a profession.”

 “You should probably finish your apprenticeship with China,” Skulduggery says. Reluctantly. 

 “But what if I want to learn Elemental magic, as well?” Stephanie says, and she turns over to face him. “I can’t do both, right?”

 “It’s very rare to be magically ambidextrous after your Surge, but not unheard of.” He pauses. “Who would teach you?”

 “I don’t know,” she says, and is surprised to find she’s grinning. “I’d need someone smart…”

“Tall, handsome,” Skulduggery nods. “Excellent taste in clothes.”

“Do you know someone?” Stephanie says. 

“Perhaps,” he allows. “I do have to warn you, he’s a little… abnormal.”

“Can’t be any worse than you,” Stephanie says, and laughs, when Skulduggery lightly kicks her in the ankle. “So, is that a yes, or…?”

“I’d be more than happy to teach you,” Skulduggery says softly. 

“Maybe we could go detectiving together,” Stephanie says. “I can be the Watson to your Sherlock.”

“I’d rather compare you to Irene Adler,” Skulduggery says. “Watson was always a little too slow on the uptake for my liking.”

“I  _ am _ beautiful and clever,” Stephanie allows.

“And charming,” Skulduggery murmurs. “Challenging, full of surprises…”

She stares at him, heat in her cheeks.

“I owe you some compliments, remember?” Skulduggery says, looking away. “I always pay my debts.”

“I had forgotten,” Stephanie says.

“I hadn’t,” Skulduggery says quietly. 

That silence has transmuted; she’s acutely aware of every part of her, of his weight in the bed, on his fingers between hers, her heart pounding.

 It’s not the time, she tells herself. She can’t. She shouldn’t.

 (But they could die tomorrow.)

 Slowly, his thumb strokes a circle on her hand, idle, and Stephanie swallows.

 “Any tips on staying alive tomorrow?” Stephanie jokes, swallowing her desire to reach out to him. He looks back at her.

 “You don’t need any,” he says. “Serpine has taken too much from me already. I’m not going to let him take you as well.”

 Oh.

 “Skulduggery,” she says. They’re only inches away from each other.

 “Yes?” he says, voice low, and is he amused, or is that nervousness, roughing that dark voice of his? His thumb stills, and she misses the sensation the moment it’s gone.

 “I’m… I’m glad. That we’re… that you were the one China sent to take me here.”

 Coward.  _ Coward. _

 “As am I,” he says quietly. “I should think that much is obvious.”

 Stephanie takes a deep breath. “Okay. Good. Cool.”

 “Hmm,” he hums, and the amusement is gone, a softness in his voice now. “I get the feeling you wanted to say something else.”

 She stares at his tie. “Nope. Nope, I’m all good.”

 “Really? Because I rather got the impression you were building up to something.”

 “I’ve never said a word in my life.” Stephanie mutters. “And I’m not going to start now.”

 He laughs then, a laugh that takes both of them by surprise, a loud, joyous thing at odds with everything that’s happened today, and there it is again, that affection, that fear, swelling in her chest, and she starts laughing as well, a thing that turns bellyaching. It’s not that funny, she knows,  _ he _ knows, and the tears that prick at her eyes are bordering on hysteric, but all these emotions funnel out of her, leaving her hollow. They both quiet down, and before she realises what she’s doing, she ducks her head against his chest. She can’t hear a heartbeat, of course, but it’s soothing, all the same.

 “Ah,” he says softly, and very slowly, reaches over, puts his arm around her. She snuggles into him. It’s fine. This is fine. 

 She’s  _ tired. _ And it’s warm. And he’s holding her. 

 “Night,” she mumbles.

 “Good night,” he murmurs, and even as he says it, she’s falling asleep.

 

-

 

She’s ten again, sitting on the beach. It’s summer; the sand is footprint trodden, the water fresh and crystal blue.

_ Stephanie _ , someone calls. Her mother; her dark hair shining in the sun. She’s wearing that one-piece that her dad always used to joke made her look like an advertisement for a grocery store, covered in bright fruit patterns. 

 Her mother’s face is blurry, even up close, like she’s looking at Melissa through stained glass. 

_ Let’s swim _ , Melissa says.

_ I don’t have bathers _ , Stephanie says. 

_ It’s just a bit of water, _ Melissa says, walking into the shallow tide.  _ A bit of water never hurt anyone. _

_  We don’t have time,  _ Stephanie insists, watching the ocean lap at her mother’s feet.  _ We need to go, before Serpine kills Dad. _

_  Your father will be fine, _ Melissa replies.  _ Come on. Have a swim with me, Steph. _

__ Stephanie shakes her head. The tide is growing higher, overtaking Melissa’s knees now. Stephanie steps back. She had gotten caught in a rip once, and the way the water moves- gentle, still, deceptive- is making her wary.

_ Valkyrie, _ Stephanie says.  _ My name’s Valkyrie. _

_ Come on, Steph, _ Melissa smiles fuzzily.  _ Don’t be silly.  _

__ Stephanie steps back again, and that blurriness has turned to something else now. Stephanie realises she doesn’t want to see what’s behind that stained-glass distortion.

 Valkyrie, someone says.

The ocean is growing higher, faster, lapping up against Stephanie’s knees as it rushes over Melissa’s shoulders. As it wipes over Melissa’s face, it takes the distortion with it, and the person behind is faceless, and several other dead people step out of the water. Her father is one of them, and she watches his clear features turn opaque, watches the mouth fade from his face-

 Stephanie wakes up with a start, heart pounding. 

 “Nightmare?” Skulduggery says, and she doesn’t answer immediately, feeling the sweat on the back of her neck. She’s cuddled up against him, a hand slung over his ribs, and she quickly extricates herself.

 “Sorry,” she mumbles, embarrassed, what got  _ into _ her?

 “Quite alright,” he says. “I have that effect on people.”

 She decides not to respond to this, and yawns, tries to get comfortable again in a way that isn’t sprawled all over him. Sleep is already coming back to claim her.

 “Besides,” Skulduggery says, watching her. “It was… not unpleasant.”

 “Glad to see you’ve moved past denying your burgeoning feelings,” Stephanie says sleepily, and when he doesn’t reply, she cracks her eye open to find him… gazing at her.

 She can’t see where he’s looking, but she can feel it, and she’s turning red.

 “What?” she asks.

 “As much as it pains me to admit it,” he says, picking over the words, “I have, yes.”

 “I don’t understand,” she says slowly. As she frowns, he turns away.

 “I should go,” Skulduggery says, sounding… embarrassed? Why would he be embarrassed-

_ Oh. _ Oh. 

 “I’ll wake you when it’s time to move out,” he says, buttoning his jacket back up. He reaches to the bedside table to pick up his hat.

 “Oi,” Stephanie says. “Where do you think you’re going?”

 “To recover my dignity,” he says.

 “You know,” she says, propping herself up on one arm, pretending like her heart isn’t pounding.    
“For a remarkably verbose man, you can be really dumb, sometimes.”

 “Is that so?”

 She nods. “Yeah, you’re a bit of a ding dong.”

 “I see,” Skulduggery says. 

 “For a start,” Stephanie grins, patting the bed next to her. “You should sit back down.”

 He sits, obedient. 

 “And then, you should cup my face,” Stephanie continues, and she brings his hand against her cheek. His glove is cold. She doesn’t mind.

 “And then what?” Skulduggery murmurs.

 “Tell me about your burgeoning feelings,” Stephanie suggests a little breathily.

 “They’re embarrassing,” he says. 

 “Wow.”

 “And remarkably distracting, what with the war going on, my friends being murdered...” 

 Stephanie starts to lean away, hating herself for this lapse in judgement. “Right. Fair enough.”

 “However,” Skulduggery continues, and his thumb rubs along her cheekbone. “I must admit… to my continued disbelief… that I find myself... perhaps…”

 “Oh, my God,” Stephanie say, thrilling at this even as she grows impatient. “Get on with it.”

 “I want you,” Skulduggery says quietly.

 Heat, striking quick and sudden to the pit of her, turns her incoherent, that voice, rough, gentle, saying those words, and before she even knows what she’s doing, she’s kissing him, her lips on his teeth.

 For a moment he’s still, and then his other hand comes to encircle her waist, pulls her flush against him. He can’t kiss her back without a tongue, but she still finds herself moaning at the sensation of him holding her so tightly, a low moan that makes him shiver. She pulls away, and they just look at each other for a few seconds. 

 She’s warm, prickling in her own skin, and Skulduggery says in a voice rougher than she’s ever heard, “Come here.”

He presses his jaw to her neck, biting the skin there gently. She shudders with it, feeling his hand stroke along her waist, his other hand running along her back, and Stephanie arches against him as he bites harder, crying out,  _ holy shit _ . They hold there, his face buried in her neck.

 “I didn’t say you could  _ stop _ ,” Stephanie says breathlessly, and laugh-moans as he nips at her ear. 

 “You’re going to be the death of me,” he murmurs, and she kisses along his cheekbones. 

 “Turnabout is fair play,” Stephanie mumbles, fumbling at her jacket. He reaches out, lays his hand over hers.

 “Not tonight,” he says simply. She blinks at him stupidly. “Not in a cave, the night before we go to war.”

 “I mean,” Stephanie says. “I’d argue the night before we go to war is  _ the _ night for it.”  

 Skulduggery doesn’t say anything, tracing along her neck with his hand, and then he says, “You deserve more than a quick, adrenaline-rushed  _ fuck _ , Valkyrie.”

 Her heart skips a beat, but her tongue doesn’t: “Those are loaded words, Mr. Pleasant.”

 “I speak from the heart,” he tells her.

 “I wasn’t aware you had one,” Stephanie can’t resist saying. 

 “You know what I mean,” he says grumpily. “In any case, the things I want to do with you should be done on a huge bed, in a nice bedroom, lit by candles, surrounded by rose petals.” He pauses, and says a little awkwardly, “Also, my facade is, shall we say, ill-equipped to handle such an important task.”

 “Is this your roundabout way of saying you want China to give you a fake dick before we get down and dirty?” Stephanie grins.

 “There’s a reason I went for the roundabout way,” Skulduggery grumbles.

 “That’s going to be a  _ very _ awkward conversation,” Stephanie says in wicked delight. 

 “Yes, I can’t say I’m relishing the idea. But the ends justify the means. And the ends, in this case…” he trails off, trailing his hand down her neck, and she shivers.

 “Alright,” Stephanie says reluctantly. “I  _ do _ need to shower though. Which does require removal of my clothes.”

 “I’ll allow it,” he murmurs graciously, watching her as she gets off the bed, hanging up her jacket. She unbuttons her clothes slowly, enjoying how his head tilts, how his fingers bunch as she drops the shirt to the floor, unwraps her sweaty breast band. Much to her disgust, she’s even more turned on now that she knows she can’t have what she wants. The fabric creaks beneath Skulduggery’s hand as he clenches the bed.

 It’s a long time since taking off her clothes in front of someone has made her shy, though she’s never considered herself necessarily bold in the bedroom. But the way Skulduggery is so clearly unable to look away from her has her heart quick, her cheeks flushed, has her grinning wicked and dirty.

 “You are making this  _ very _ difficult,” he says roughly. 

 “Why on earth would that be?” she says innocently, slipping off her trousers. When she bends down to pick them up, Skulduggery  _ groans _ .

 “Because you’re  _ stunning _ ,” he growls. 

 “See? Giving me a compliment wasn’t so hard,” she teases, draping them over the desk chair.

 “I’ll show you  _ hard _ ,” he mutters, watching her as she laughs and disappears into the bathroom.

 

-

 

While Stephanie does get some sleep, drifting in and out, Skulduggery and her spend the time talking in quiet murmurs; he tells her stories of his various cases, of how he met Gordon, of how he met Ghastly. Occasionally he falls silent, reliving a memory, and she has to reach out to him to bring him back, her hand cupping his jaw, and then he’ll tell another story.

 She wonders how long it’s been since he could talk to someone like this, so candidly, like a tap long rusted has been turned on and he doesn’t know how to turn it off.

 (A secondary, darker thought: is he preparing to die a final death?)

 Eventually, she truly falls asleep truly, and doesn’t dream at all, and it takes Skulduggery borderline shoving her before she wakes up again. 

 The first thought is  _ Dad. _ The second is  _ Oh. That actually happened. _

 “Time to get ready,” Skulduggery says, watching her yawn and stretch in his arms.

 Getting ready is a quick, silent process. It’s nine in the evening; well past dark. She slips on her jacket, makes sure her shoes are properly tied, and takes a final look around this little room.

 It strikes her, a little late, that she’s going to miss this place.

 “Ready?” Skulduggery asks, adjusting his hat as she opens the door for him. He’s in a new suit, completely black.

 “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Stephanie nods. “Looking very suave, by the way.”

 “Thank you,” Skulduggery says, and offers his arm to her. She takes it. “Time to start a revolution,” he says lightly.

 “No time like the present,” Stephanie says, swallowing her fear, and the door closes shut behind her.

 

-

 

The caves are full of people, mortals and sorcerers alike running up and down the hallways, shouting orders, following orders. Skulduggery’s facade, much to her amusement, is that of the bland man who she first met him as.

 “What are the odds?’” she had grinned.

 “Not slim enough,” he had replied. “I hate this face. It doesn’t do me justice.”

 Luckily, something in his stride still has people clearing out of his way, and they make it through the rush with ease, all the way down to the antechamber where Dexter, Tanith and Corrival are waiting.

 Dexter looks terrible, awful bags under his eyes, and Tanith is dressed in a black combat suit not unlike Dexter’s.

 “Ghastly made it for me,” she says with a rueful smile when she sees Stephanie looking.

 “You need to be at the Sanctum’s southern gates by zero-three-hundred hours,” Corrival says to them. “That’s when China’s going to activate the sigil alarms at the northern side.”

 “Do we know where the Gate and Grotesquery are?” Tanith says, adjusting her scabbard belt.

 “The Gate is being stored somewhere in the lower levels,” Corrival says. “The Grotesquery is being stored in the old medical wing. You and Dexter need to stick together and take out whichever one is easiest to get to first. Skulduggery, you and Valkyrie need to go to the meeting chambers the Elders used to use.” His lip curls in distaste. “Apparently, Serpine has had it converted into his living quarters.”

 “As tasteful as ever,” Skulduggery murmurs.

 “If we haven’t heard back from you by the end of tomorrow…” Corrival says grimly.

 “Assume the worst,” Skulduggery nods.

 “Good luck out there,” Corrival says gruffly, and they clasp each other's arms. 

 “We don’t need luck,” Skulduggery says. 

 “I get the feeling I’m going to be reminding you that you said that,” Stephanie says ruefully.

 

-

 

The trek to the Circuit is tense. Dexter leads, Skulduggery taking the rear, which puts Tanith and Stephanie together.

 They haven’t had the chance to talk since they left for Gordon’s mansion, and Stephanie looks at her friend, at how that face is… not cold, but hard, perhaps. This Tanith is in Business Mode, and while Stephanie thinks this isn’t the time to have a heart to heart, she wonders if Tanith is okay. She doesn’t know the extent of Tanith’s feelings for Ghastly, doesn’t know if Tanith is sad or quietly devastated. Tanith and Ghastly hadn’t known each other for long, she supposes, but that doesn’t mean too much in the scheme of things.

 She looks at Dexter’s back. Dexter, whose silence is a numb, furious silence. She wonders how long Dexter and Saracen had been… on and off? Was that the phrase Skulduggery used? 

 Being relatively immortal may not be all that it’s cracked up to be, she thinks. To have to outlive someone you love. And now she’s thinking about her father, and her heart clenches.

 It’s a long time not to speak; when they come to the Circuit, Stephanie is relieved, if only because the forest doesn’t make a good distraction from her father-fears. A break in scenery, as they all squeeze on to the Circuit and suddenly they’re back in that trainyard on the western outskirts of Dublin. Tanith is the one who throws up into the river this time.

 “It’s a right of passage,” Stephanie says, and Tanith chuckles after wiping her mouth.

 “All good?” Skulduggery says, and Tanith nods; they trace along the river for sometime, and it occurs to Stephanie, as they walk along through the suburbs, that she doesn’t actually know where the Sanctum is. This thought occupies her for a bit, and she takes the distraction gratefully, and asks Tanith.

 When she does, Tanith’s mouth twists. “Its location isn’t… great.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “It’s in the National Wax Museum,” Skulduggery says, and Stephanie laughs before she can stop herself.

 “I’m sorry,  _ what _ ?”

 “There’s a secret entrance,” Tanith says, “Just next to the wax figure of Phil Lynott.”

 “Right,” Stephanie says. “Perfectly logical.”

 “Quiet,” Dexter says from the front, a grim annoyance in his tone, and they fall silent.

 It’s a curious thing, walking all this way, because with every step, Stephanie becomes more and more convinced that she’s going to arrive and her father will be dead and then she’s going to die. It’s a panic that starts numb in her fingers; by the time they pass through Harold’s Cross, it’s chattering away in a buzz at the base of neck. They’re trying not to use the cloaking field unless they absolutely have to; it’ll take so much longer to get to the Sanctum with all of them trying to fit under it. So, Tanith has overtaken them to scout ahead, and it’s just her and Skulduggery and Dexter, waiting. Dexter squats down, stretching out his legs, and Skulduggery calmly stands beside her.

 Her leg starts twitching.

_ Calm down, _ she tells herself.  _ It’s fine. He’s there. He’s safe. You panicking isn’t going to  _ help.

 Skulduggery, very gently, takes her hand then, grounds her, and by the time Tanith returns, the panic is back to numbing her fingers, which she can deal with. Tanith gives her a wink when she sees Skulduggery let her hand go, of course, and Stephanie smiles a little weakly at her. 

 The further they go into Dublin, the more unsettled she becomes. They’re all crammed in the cloaking sphere now, Cleavers stationed too frequently for them to just sneak past, so it’s painfully slow goings. Crossing the street feels like an eternity. 

 The Sanctum is obvious, even from far away, a tall, black wall that towers above the skyline. Stephanie can’t decide whether it’s imposing or ridiculous. As they come closer to it, and she sees the many sigils slashed into the stone, she settles on imposing.

 “Does anyone have the time?” Tanith asks, and Skulduggery pulls out a pocket watch. 

 “Two forty-five,” he replies. “Let’s get over to the wall so I can push us all through.”

 There aren’t any Cleavers stationed along this stretch, but then, with a wall like this, Stephanie can hardly blame them. She has to literally bend over backwards to see the top of it. It must be over fifty stories high.

 No, she decides. It’s ridiculous.

 As they wait, Tanith checks her sword, Dexter adjusts the straps of his coat. Skulduggery spins the barrels of his gun, slotting in four bullets into the chamber. All of them with their black rings, ready to go.

 Stephanie watches in interest as the sigils glow on the wall, moving and twisting, branches lighting up like lightning coming from the west.

 “That’s our cue,” Tanith says.

 “Stay close to me, now,” Skulduggery says, and they huddle together as he clenches his fists, twists them, and the wall starts crumbling inwards.

 The wall closes up behind them as they walk through. It’s incredibly dark, and takes them a good ten seconds to reach the other side, ten seconds in which every single fear Stephanie has surrounds her in the absence of light, in the absence of being able to see Skulduggery in front of her- and then they’re out.

 If the outside of the Sanctum is unsettling, the inside is straight up bizarre; familiar buildings stripped of character and advertisement, all greenery removed, so well lit it’s like they’ve stepped into a different time zone. Stephanie was expecting it to be like a luxury resort, with water features, statues of Serpine, gold bricks…

 But this… it feels like a prison, she realises.

 “This way,” Skulduggery says, and they walk through the streets, keeping close to the sides of buildings. Cleavers are streaming past, clearly on their way to China’s distraction, and several times Skulduggery has to push their little cloaked huddle with air out of the way to avoid a squad of running Cleavers intersecting them.

 When they come to the wax museum itself, it’s a little underwhelming, a little unremarkable- save for the several Cleavers waiting out the front, all in white, all impassive.

 “We can’t get through ten of these Cleavers,” Skulduggery says.

 “Time for another distraction?” Stephanie suggests.

 “It’ll take more than a distraction to move them,” Tanith murmurs. “Dexter, how big can you make your explosions?”

 “What do you have in mind?”

 Tanith gestures to the building next to it. “Can you knock it down?”

 “It’d be my pleasure,” Dexter says with a grim smile, and holds out his hand; a silver streak so fast Stephanie can barely see it, and the entire building explodes, fire and smoke and raining debris.

 The Cleavers, to their credit, move immediately, fanning out, activating sigils, and the four of them approach the wax museum’s door.

 “Locked,” Skulduggery says.

 “Out of the way,” Tanith commands, and holds her hand to it; the door swings open.

 “Nice,” Stephanie says, and they step through, side-stepping a squad of Cleavers rushing past them.

 “We need to get somewhere safe,” Skulduggery says. “The field will run out soon.”

 They rush through the halls. With the wax figures removed, it could be any other building. It’s as if this little patch of Dublin has been stripped of what made it  _ Dublin _ . There’s no furniture, no signs of life. Stephanie starts to wonder if they’re lost when the cloaking field starts contracting.

 “In here,” Skulduggery says, and they all pile into a little storage cupboard, waiting for the field to run out entirely.

 As it contracts, they can hear people rushing past. Every time, Stephanie flinches, waiting for someone to throw open the door. 

 The field runs out; Skulduggery twists the sphere once more, and then they poke their heads outside.

 Rounding a corner, as a patch of wall slides open and admits several more Cleavers, they slip past, down several flights of staircases (it’s pure luck they don’t encounter someone coming up the other way) and come into a far different building than the one they first entered.

 It’s like coming from an unfurnished office into a corporate lounge; it oozes with class, pot plants and tiles and expensive looking paintings. It borders on opulent, when Stephanie sees the water feature in the next room.

 But it’s empty as well. It may be the middle of the night, but where  _ is _ everyone? Shouldn’t there be a waiting staff, at least?

 “I don’t like this,” Stephanie says.

 “You don’t have to like it,” Skulduggery replies. “We’ll split off from here on out.”

 “You keep the sphere,” Tanith says immediately. “Dexter and I can take care of ourselves.”

 “Don’t wait for us,” Skulduggery says. “Do what you need to do and get out.”

 Tanith rolls her eyes. “Shall we pretend that’s what we’re going to do, if that makes your life better?”

 “Absolutely, yes. See you back at the trainyard.”

 Tanith clasps Stephanie’s arm with a reassuring smile, and then her and Dexter peel away, making their way into an adjoining hallway. Skulduggery and her carefully walk through the main foyer. 

 “Your father is likely being held in the jail, which is the next floor down,” Skulduggery says. “We’ll be passing it to get to Serpine’s quarters.”

 Reassurance, clear and strong, and she nods. 

 “When we  _ do _ get to Serpine,” he continues, “Keep out of the way. If you see a chance to go for the Scepter or the Book of Names without risking yourself, take it.”

 They descend a fancy looking staircase.  

 “What if you need my help?” Stephanie says.

 “I’ll give you the signal.”

 “Which is?”

 He hums, and then says, “The sparrow flies south for the winter.”

 Stephanie laughs. “Bit of a mouthful, don’t you think?”

 “ _ I _ happen to think it flies off the tongue.”

 “Of course it does. You don’t have one.”

 “I do so,” Skulduggery says, sticking it out at her. With saliva and everything.”

 “Prove it,” she says, as they check around a corner for any incoming Cleavers.

 “If you insist,” he replies, and pulls her in for a deep kiss that has her weak at the knees, her heart pounding.

 “Coast is clear,” he murmurs against her lips, and grinning, dizzy with both his kiss and the anticipation of seeing her dad safe and sound, she lightly smacks his chest.

 “You goon,” she grins, and they round the final corner.

 Skulduggery kneels to pick the lock to the jail door, and she watches as he fiddles and curses with the lock.

 “Why can’t you just open it like Tanith?” she says. 

 “Because I’m an Elemental,” he reminds her.

 “Sounds like a  _ you _ problem,” she says. He pops the lock open, and they go in.

 Where the rest of the Sanctum is opulent, the jail is very much a jail; it’s cold in here, and smells like concrete, like must. The hallway is lined with doors, and Skulduggery puts his hand to the wall; his facade’s eyes close for a few seconds.

 “Odd,” Skulduggery says. “Only two cells are occupied.”

 He walks to the third door on the right and takes out his lock picks. As he works, Stephanie traces the sigils carved into the metal, and hesitantly, takes out her scalpel. Her instinct is right; this door is locked with magic. A lock pick won’t work.

 A Carver, however…

 She carefully reaches over and puts a careful scratch that intersects with several sigils, and the lock pops open.

 “Unorthodox,” Skulduggery says, standing up.

 “You can thank me later,” Stephanie shrugs, pushing the door open to reveal-

 Fletcher, broken and bruised, handcuffed to a bed. Skulduggery kneels down, takes his pulse.

 “He’s still alive,” Skulduggery says. “Just unconscious.” He probes along Fletcher’s head, and ribs, and his facade frowns. “Likely some fractured ribs.”

 “Should we try to take him with us?” Stephanie says, keeping an eye on the door.

 “We’ll have to wake him up and see if he can walk,” Skulduggery says, and lightly slaps Fletcher a few times. Stephanie winces; her dislike of Fletcher aside, he looks like steamed shit.

 As Skulduggery goes for the fifth slap, Fletcher flinches, his eyes fluttering open.

 “Please,” he says hoarsely, trying to pull himself away. “I already told Serpine I’d help,  _ please _ -”

 “Calm down, Fletcher,” Skulduggery says, and Fletcher sags in relief.

 “Thank God,” he says. “Thank God.”

 “Can you walk?” Stephanie says.

 “I… I think so.”

 “Good,” Skulduggery says. “Otherwise we’d have to leave you here.”

 Fletcher swings his legs over the bed, and stands up slowly, wincing. “What about the handcuffs?”

 Skulduggery looks at Stephanie, who steps forward to examine them; standard binding cuffs. She thinks for a second, then takes out her scalpel, carefully negating several specific sigils and keeping the alarmed one unactivated. The cuffs fall open; Skulduggery pockets them and then helps Fletcher walk out of the room.

 “Where’s everyone else?” Fletcher mumbles.

 “Back at the Sanctuary, preparing for invasion,” Skulduggery says. They’re crossing to a door further down the hall, and Stephanie negates the same sigils here, opens the door, praying that the inhabitant is who it should be, who it  _ needs _ to be.

 Her heart catches in her throat, as her father sits up, sleepily blinking. He has a black eye, but beyond that, he seems in significantly better shape than Fletcher, if a little pale.

 “Stephanie?” he says in surprise, and Stephanie almost bowls him over in her joy.

 “Dad,” she half-sobs. “Oh my God, I’m so glad to see you.”

 “Steph,” he says, confused. “What are you doing here?”   
 “It’s a long story,” Skulduggery says smoothly, and Desmond looks at him.

 “Have we met?” he says, frowning. 

 “A long time ago, at your brother’s funeral. My name is Skulduggery Pleasant, and I hate to rush a family reunion, but we really have to get you out of here.”

 “Alright,” Desmond says bemusedly, and Stephanie breaks his cuffs open as well, so relieved she thinks she might die from it.

 “Fletcher,” Skulduggery says, “I need you to teleport you and Mr. Edgley here back to the Sanctuary.” He passes Fletcher that chunky bangle, and Fletcher slides it on. “The moment you get inside, I need you to go straight to Corrival. He’ll fill you in on what you need to do, alright?”

 Fletcher nods, and puts a hand on Desmond’s shoulder.

 “Thank you,” he says to them.

 “What, what about Ste-” Desmond begins, and then they’re gone. 

 Stephanie takes a deep, shuddering sigh of relief, and squeezes Skulduggery’s hand tightly.

 “Thanks,” she whispers.

 He smiles at her. “Let’s keep moving, shall we?”

 There’s a sudden high pitched keening, a noise Stephanie recognises as a sigil alarm having been activated.

 “That must be Tanith and Dexter’s work,” Skulduggery says. “Come on.”

 They rush out of the jail, still safely inside their cloaking field. Skulduggery leads her a hallway that wouldn’t look out of place in a hotel, and as they step over a threshold into a large antechamber, the cloaking field shorts out; a tingle runs over Stephanie’s skin, and she feels her loyalty sigil warm on her thigh. Skulduggery’s facade twitches and then melts away.

 “Worth a try,” Skulduggery shrugs, but she sees his hand slipping to rest on the butt of his gun.

 “I disagree,” says someone with a Bostonian accent, and Stephanie grimaces as Marr steps out seemingly from nowhere in front of them. Only Stephanie’s keen eyes see the sigils glowing at her feet; there must be a secret passageway set up down here, or an internal Circuit.

 “Valkyrie,” she says in mild surprise. “It’s been a while, sweetheart.”

 “Not long enough,” Stephanie mutters. 

 “And who’s this?” she continues, looking at Skulduggery. “A dead man, in our walls?”

 He shrugs. “We’re just passing through.”

 “Well, I’m afraid that ends here,” she says sweetly. 

 He nods. “You’re right. Now that you’ve seen us, we can’t just let you go.”

 She laughs. “Is that a threat?”

 “No,” Skulduggery says. “A promise.”

 And he brings his hands in to his sides and draws them up so quickly that if Stephanie had blinked, she would have missed it. A wave of air snaps Marr face first into the wall she seemed to step out from, and she falls to the ground, head bleeding, snarling.

 “Would you like to step in at all, dear?” he says, looking at Stephanie. 

 “No,” she says, enjoying the fury on Marr’s face. “It’s much more fun to see her take on someone her own size.”

 “Fair enough,” Skulduggery says, easily dissipating a fireball Marr lobs at him with a wave of his hand. Another gesture, and a patch of ice appears just below Marr’s foot as she steps forward, sending her flat onto her back. Stephanie laughs. 

 “I have to say,” Skulduggery continues, blocking several shards of ice Marr throws his way and redirecting them back at her, “I’m a little underwhelmed. I expected more from one of Serpine’s captains.”

 Marr leaps into a roll, narrowly dodging the ice, and comes up on one knee.

 “Fuck you,” Marr spits.

 “I can’t believe she ever managed to beat you up,” Skulduggery says to Stephanie, and with a casual flick of his hand, the stone tile beneath her feet catapults her into the ceiling. Marr smacks into it head first and lands in a crumple. She doesn’t move.

 “A little bit of an anti-climax,” Skulduggery says, bending over to cuff her. “I was going to let you try and get a hit in. My apologies.”

 Stephanie shrugs. “I broke my hand once punching her. I don’t feel the need to do it again.”

 “Fair enough,” he says, and they step over Marr’s body and continue on their merry way.

 Stephanie keeps expecting to be ambushed, but they aren’t; whether it’s luck, or a bigger, greater ambush is in the works, she doesn’t know. She’s getting chills, now, the little knot of magic inside her quaking. There’s something… so  _ wrong _ here, something powerful, something bigger than the both of them, radiating menace through these opulent walls.

 “Serpine has been experimenting with things beyond his ken,” Skulduggery says suddenly. 

 “Necromancy, you mean?”

 “Yes and no,” Skulduggery replies. “This is old magic, the sort of magic Mevolent was researching back in his time.”

 “Maybe he’ll be asleep,” Stephanie suggests. 

 Skulduggery nods. “We might be able to just snatch everything off him and then kill him.”

 “Really?”

 “No.”

 They climb down a short half-flight of stairs, and come to a grand entrance, a door magnificently carved with insignias, Carved with sigils. That menacing power is so strong Stephanie finds herself shivering. He reaches out, holds her hand.

 “Serpine took my family’s deaths and made them about me,” he says. “I’d quite prefer it if he didn’t do the same to you. So if I tell you to run, promise me you’ll run and you won’t look back.”

 “I’ll do my best,” she murmurs, and he presses a single bony kiss to her cheek, soft and sweet.

 “It’s been a pleasure knowing you, Valkyrie,” Skulduggery murmurs with a smile.

 “Eh,” she shrugs, and he laughs. She reaches out with that trusty scalpel once more, scratches out several sigils, and then she pushes on the door, and they go in. 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to fight, I guess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once again to Mooncactus, who beta'd this even through exhaustion and a very busy schedule!

The temperature plummets the moment they step through the door, Stephanie’s breath puffing up in plumes before her face. Skulduggery and her creep so carefully down the hall, every rustle of fabric like a scream echoing in the silence.

 They come out into a huge room, a room clearly not made to be set up like the living room it is. It’s incredibly off putting; the high ceiling, the dark marble, the luxurious couches, the many abstract paintings hung on the walls…

 It feels  _ wrong _ . 

 And there- at the back of the room - a book, on a pedestal. The title is inlaid with gold leaf, and it’s written in a tongue she doesn’t recognise. But as Stephanie lays eyes on it, the symbols shift and rearrange.

_ The Book of Names _ , it says, in a shining typeset she can read even from here. Bingo.

 Stephanie goes to cross the room, to pick it up, but the door on the other side of the room opens and a man with glittering green eyes steps through. He looks at them both. They look back at him.

 “I don’t remember sending for company,” the man says, his voice a smooth whisper.  “We’re new,” Skulduggery shrugs. “We plump pillows, read bedtime stories, all that jazz.”

 “There’s only one story you could tell me that would be of any interest, and that’s how you survived me cracking your skull in two.”

 “Bold of you to assume something as simple as that would kill me,” Skulduggery replies. “But speaking of death, Serpine, you aren’t looking so lively yourself.”

 “How the pot calls the kettle black,” Serpine replies with a smile, and it highlights the thin rictus of scars around his face that Stephanie had mistaken for wrinkles and the Emperor of the Empire stands before her, the man who caused the death of her mother and uncle, and he’s wearing a sheer, black silk bathrobe.

 The absurdity of this makes her even angrier, somehow, that he has the nerve to look so relaxed when the blood of her family is on his hands.   
 “You sound like you’ve got a spot of tonsillitis, as well,” Skulduggery continues, seemingly unperturbed. “You know, they have vitamins for that now.”

 “I’m quite past needing to supplement my diet, but your concern is noted and appreciated.”

 “I thought as much. You’ve been continuing Mevolent’s studies, then?”

  Serpine sits down on his chair, crossing his legs. The sheer insolence of it has Stephanie’s hands balling into fists. The neck of his gown drapes open, and something golden and shiny is tucked into the robe’s tie. 

 “I’ve far surpassed Mevolent,” Serpine says lazily. “I’d offer you some tea, by the way, but of course…” He waves at Skulduggery by way of explanation.

 “Surpassed Mevolent?” Skulduggery says drily. “I find that hard to believe.”

 “I confess, having the Book here did help me along.”

 “I can imagine. Would you mind if I had a quick look?”

 “I’m afraid I would mind, yes.”

 “And here I thought we were friends,” Skulduggery says sadly. “All those dark autumn days…”

 “Me, cutting you.”

 “Me, crying out.” Skulduggery pauses. “Fun for the whole family. You know, Nefarian, I have to say, you’re looking remarkably relaxed for a man who’s about to die.”

 “I’m already dead,” Serpine replies.

 “A good job’s always worth doing twice, I always say.”

 “And considering I have  _ this _ ,” Serpine says, pulling his gown open just enough to reveal the golden object in its entirety, “I’d say I have the higher ground, wouldn’t you?”

 “The Scepter,” Skulduggery says warily, and Stephanie closes her eyes, willing herself to stay calm. It’s a glorious looking thing, golden, alien, Carved with streams and streams of sigils with a huge black stone on top that has to be its power source and something in Stephanie  _ knows _ this thing, as if she made it herself.

 “Quite. I’m rather attached to it. As much as I’d love to say all of this was my work… I couldn’t have done it without the Scepter or the Book, of course. Or your Mr. Ravel. He’s quite the wiley one. You know, I tried to get the location of your little Sanctuary out of him for years? I could have just used his true name, of course, but where’s the fun in that? I enjoyed letting him think he could overpower me- oh, but I’m monologuing now!” Serpine laughs. It sounds dreadful, like rusted wire. “How rude of me. Are you going to introduce me to your quiet, albeit lovely friend?”

 Serpine looks at Stephanie then, over his shoulder. He doesn’t look a single bit perturbed by her.

 “Valkyrie,” Skulduggery says. “My partner.”

 “Sorrow’s apprentice?” Serpine says, mildly surprised. “Marr told me she killed you.”

 “Marr’s a dumbass,” Stephanie says levelly, afraid if she says more than three words she might launch herself at him. The anger is like fire in her belly, but she’s no fool. Serpine may look relaxed, but she has no doubt he would be able to kill her with little more than a gesture.

 Doesn’t stop her wanting to tear his eyes out, though.

 “She is indeed,” Serpine says thoughtfully.  “My, it’s been a while since Skulduggery Pleasant took on a partner, let alone such a beautiful one. If it weren’t for your unique physicality, I’d have to wonder- partner in crime, or partner in love?”

 “Wonder all you like,” Skulduggery says, the casualness drained from his voice. Serpine looks delighted.

 “You’re actually  _ involved _ with this shambles of a man?” Serpine asks Stephanie incredulously. “But how does he… well, don’t make me  _ say  _ it,” he laughs. Skulduggery is silent and Stephanie shakes with fury. 

 Serpine smiles at Skulduggery, shifting in his chair.  “It’s a shame, of course, that I have to kill you now. Since I’m feeling generous, and a little nostalgic,” Serpine continues. “I’ll grant you one final request.”

 “Can you put on some more clothes?” Skulduggery says. “I’d rather not be killed by a man in his dressing gown.”

 Serpine laughs. “You know,  I think I’ll actually miss you. It’s not quite an end-of-the-world plot without your arch nemesis there, is it?”

  The Scepter is levelled at Skulduggery, and she’s trying to figure out what she can do, there has to be  _ something she can do,  _ and as Serpine shifts, she sees the chair he’s sitting on is right in the middle of a tile. A stone tile. And Serpine, his his casual arrogance, seems to have discounted her entirely. There’s a long, tense pause as the two men size each other up, and Stephanie reaches into herself, digs into herself with everything she’s got.

 It happens very quickly. The moment she sees that black stone begin to glow, she digs her magic into the stone beneath Serpine and rips it out from under him. The black stream of energy flies wide, disintegrates the wall behind Skulduggery, and Skulduggery is already ducking underneath it and shooting towards him, boosted by a gale that sends the paintings smacking against the walls. The Scepter flies high, and Stephanie watches it as Skulduggery knocks Serpine into a pillar with a punch that has Serpine’s head audibly snapping back.

 Stephanie scrambles for the Scepter, but it’s disappeared into a pile of tawdry golden  _ linens _ of all things, and she drops to her knees, scrambling for it.

 “You never could fight worth a damn,” Skulduggery says viciously, and she can hear the sound of a fist striking flesh, of bone snapping. 

 “Didn’t stop me from killing your dear Valentine, did it,” Serpine says, just as viciously, and there’s a grunt of pain as Skulduggery hits him again.

 Where  _ is it _ ?  _ Where is it where is it where is it _ -

 Skulduggery huffs a noise of pain and Stephanie looks up just in time to see him fly into the wall, a wall now covered in hands and arms and fingers that pull him there, hold him there. Serpine stands up, brushing off his knees, and Stephanie feels ill when she sees his head is back to front. He reaches up, twists his head back around with a sickening crack. “Where are your clever little taunts now, Skulduggery?”

 “Takes one to know one,” Skulduggery manages, and then he’s gone, sucked into the wall, and Stephanie is alone with the man who brought down the world, just as her hand closes on the Scepter.

 Serpine turns to regard her in amusement. He looks like he should be working in a museum, she thinks distantly, slim and narrow, black hair neatly combed back. But those eyes, a bright green, how they glitter from in between the many fine scars etched into his skin. She grips onto the Scepter so tightly she feels her knuckles creak.

 “Well, look at that,” Serpine says pleasantly, stepping towards her. “Alone at last.”

 “I’ll take that cup of tea, if it’s still on offer,” Stephanie says with an unexpected sprout of bravery, stepping back, bringing the Scepter to bear at him. He chuckles, raising his arm, and she flinches at the sight of it, red and raw, muscles and sinew exposed, shining with unshed blood. Purple vapour gathers in his palm, and he rips that hand down; the purple shoots out like a whip, latching on to the Scepter, and she grips with all of her might as he drags her to him as easily as he’s bringing a dog to heel. She sinks her feet into the tiles, brings the marble flowing over her, cries out as he keeps pulling her anyway, the floor  _ crick-cracking _ around her legs.

 She keeps trying to activate the Scepter, but of course, it won’t respond to her; she can see from the sigils, this is a bonded thing, and the adrenaline is overtaking her fear as she gives up on trying to resist and instead lets him pull her. The suddenness of her surrender throws him off and she flies towards him, using the speed and strength to dip her shoe into the ground and kick a marble tile at his face.

 He laughs as it smashes into his forehead, and the purple vapour smacks into her ribcage like a hammer and sends her spinning through the air, smacking into a table. The pain, the impact, sucks the breath from her body, and she wheezes, curls into herself.

“That was woeful,” Serpine says, and she sees the gash, the dent in his head, sealing up, “Who do you think you  _ are?  _ A hero?”

 She coughs, trying to sit up, but the pain wracks through her; her ribs must be broken, she thinks through the pain, and Serpine stalks over and lifts her up by the lapels of her jacket. The movement sends agony screeching through her, so strong white dots appear in her vision, and someone screams. It’s her.

 “Do you think Skulduggery will be upset when he finds you dead?” Serpine asks her mildly. “I think he’ll be quite devastated, in fact. He cried when I killed his family, you know. It was amusing and only a little pathetic.”

 She punches him in the face, kicks him in the ribs. He laughs again and throws her into a pillar, and she cries out, drops the Scepter. He walks past it as if she doesn’t even register as a threat high enough to use it.

 “Skulduggery will kill you,” Stephanie mutters, trying to kneel up. “He’ll rip that ugly hand off your arm.”

 “You talk bravely,” Serpine says, kicking her in the side. She screams. “But after a decade of ruling a world, you get to know what fear looks like. What it smells like. And you stink of it. All of you mortals do. If you had all just laid down and let me get on with my plans, I wouldn’t have had to kill so many of you.”

 Stephanie’s face twists. “Don’t you  _ dare _ blame us,” she whispers. 

 “Oh, did I strike a nerve?” Serpine asks. He presses his slipper into her rib, applies pressure. She almost throws up with the pain. “Who was it? A lover? A brother?”

 “My mother,” she mutters, trying to get up. “And my uncle.”

 “I’ve killed a lot of mothers, and a lot of uncles,” Serpine shrugs. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”

 “Fuck you,” Stephanie says, and spits on his stupid fuzzy slipper. His nose wrinkles.

 “All  _ I _ wanted to do was take the Book, take the Scepter, and open the Gate for the Faceless Ones. But you  _ mortals _ ,” he says, and the word is covered in venom, sizzles with it. “You  _ mortals _ and those stupid sorcerers at the Sanctuary...”

 He steps down on her ribs with all his weight, and the pain is so much she can’t even make a sound, as the hatred she’s felt all her life, all that anger, that sorrow, that horror, solidifies with the way his eyes glitter at her, like she’s barely human, like her life- mortal life- is indistinguishable from a wild animal’s.

 “But I’m wasting my words on you, of course,” Serpine muses. He lashes a final, brutal kick into her, and she coughs up blood. “Pleasant may be a colossal pain in my ass, but at least he’s amusing.”

 He passes by her, a vague shape in her vision, pain throbbing and roiling in her, and the anger pales next to it.

 Tanith’s voice in her head, a lesson she taught Stephanie early in their time together.

_ Pain can be your friend _ , she had told her.  _ It can sharpen your senses, get your adrenaline going _ .  _ It’s rough as guts, Val, but you have to let it in. _

__ So she does; only the blood in her mouth stops her from screaming as the hot agony of it rushes over her, drowns her, and then she spits onto the tiles and she looks up.

 Serpine is leaning down to pick up the Scepter, and she reaches out, flicks up the tile the Scepter lies on, sends the Scepter flying across the room.

 Serpine makes a noise of exasperation, and turns back to her.

 “I was going to give you a quick death, too,” he says grimly, and raises that red hand- and then the Scepter is glowing, and making that high pitched sound from earlier, and then Skulduggery falls through the ceiling in a heap next to Stephanie.

 “Ah,” he says. “I’m back.”

 “You are,” Serpine nods, and before Skulduggery can move, Serpine is grabbing him by the skull, slamming the butt of the Scepter into the side of his head. Skulduggery grunts, tackles Serpine around the waist; they fly into the opposite wall. Serpine drops the Scepter in the process and Stephanie lunges for it. Her fingers almost close around it, and then that purple vapour is back around her rips, crushing her and dragging her away as more vapour whips the Scepter back into Serpine’s hands. Serpine whirls, and the Scepter flashes, and the couch Stephanie had hidden behind disintegrates as Skulduggery leaps out of the way. In the process, he draws his guns and fires; the bullets sink into Serpine’s skull, his cheek, his chest, his stomach. Black blood sprays and Serpine laughs.

 “I forgot you had those delightful little toys of yours. Very quaint,” he adds with a smile. The bullets ooze back out of him, and drop to the floor.

 “I stopped you once,” Skulduggery says. “I’ll stop you again.”

 “You  _ have _ caused me no end of trouble over the years. It’s getting a little tiring, I confess.”

 “Is that a surrender?” Skulduggery says, edging around the room. Stephanie sees from where Serpine has abandoned her on the side of the room, that he’s coming closer to the Book.

 Serpine doesn’t seem to notice it- or if he does, he doesn’t care. 

 “I don’t know how you still think that you have the upper hand, my old foe.”

 “Bells and whistles aside, you’re a zombie,” Skulduggery shrugs. “And I’ve killed many a zombie.”

 “I was hoping your last words would be a little more memorable,” Serpine says. Skulduggery is still slowly crossing the room, a flame burning in his hands. “Something I could put on a plaque, or on a kitschy little jar that I’d put your dust in. I’d put it in my bathroom. Something to spruce up the place. My God, I’m getting sentimental at the idea. You can keep me company when I take a shower.”

 Stephanie screams out as the Scepter glows once more, that black lightning shooting out, but Skulduggery reaches behind him, quick as a whip, and brandishes the Book like a shield.

 The black lightning hits the Book of Names, and they all stop to watch as its dust falls through Skulduggery’s hands. 

 Skulduggery charges through the dust, slams into Serpine. The Scepter goes flying, and Serpine twists out of the headlock Skulduggery has him in, grabs Skulduggery by the neck.

 “No matter,” Serpine pants. “Book or no Book, I still have the Scepter, and your little taunts and insults will mean little when you’re  _ ashes _ .”

 Skulduggery bats away his hands, smashes a fist into his jaw. Serpine retaliates with a blast of that purple vapour that sends Skulduggery flying, sends another whip of it to get the Scepter. It flies past Stephanie until Skulduggery knocks it off course with a blast of air. It lands in front of Stephanie as she’s trying to stand through the pain and she stares at it, stares at those sigils, and sees a very familiar symbol; her old friend, the upside down fruit bowl.

 Skulduggery gestures with his hand, and Serpine is sent careening against the wall, held there by a block of air.

 “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he says smugly, raising his red right hand.

 “You can’t kill what’s already dead, Serpine,” Skulduggery reminds him. 

 “Oh, I haven’t forgotten,” Serpine says.

 She registers this on the abstract; Stephanie is staring at the sigil, at the pattern it sits in. It’s functioning as the descriptor of an object, and the object it’s describing is the owner of the Scepter, with a negated sigil before it.

_ A Necromancer symbol, _ Skulduggery had said, a symbol adopted by practitioners of death magic, and if it’s saying it can only be bound to the living…

 “Skulduggery!” Stephanie yells, struggling to her feet. “Use it!”

 And with the last of her strength she throws the Scepter just as Serpine laughs and Skulduggery cries for him to stop, and Serpine points that red, red hand at her.

 Stephanie screams. It’s a pain like nothing she’s ever felt. It’s scrubbing at the guts of her, steel wool on her soul, scouring her dry and clean. Serpine curls his fingers and she curls into a ball, unable to do anything, to think anything. A numbness spreads from her ribs, a cool, welcome relief, moving through her torso, fading into her shoulders, her legs, and it takes root in her heart.

 The world feels unreal to her, now, a vagueness, fuzzy images of a man with green eyes falling from a wall and a skeleton reaching out for her. The skeleton is screaming for her, crying out. Something golden in his gloved hand, shining, and he’s holding it at the man with green eyes.

 Everything moves so slowly, like treacle, like caramel. She can’t even remember her own name, now, and she watches with a sleepy detachment as the gold stick in his hand glows dark, a pretty little darkness, and the air cracks.

 Even as that darkness streaks through the room, she’s fading. The coldness has overtaken her. She can’t remember a thing, but there’s a woman standing over her now, a woman in a fruit patterned bathing suit, with kind, lined eyes, and there’s the ocean, and the woman is reaching out to her. She thinks to herself, that hand looks strong, and warm, and she reaches out to take it, but her arm won’t move. That’s okay. She doesn’t have it in herself to care. Not anymore.

 The green eyed man is grinning, his eyes aglitter, but his face crumbles, his teeth splinter, that red hand greying and withering and then, Serpine turns to dust that falls so, so slowly to the floor.

 It’s like she’s been suffocating, and now she can breathe; her pulse pounds, a ringing in her ears, and she’s tingling and hurting and her lungs rush as Stephanie gasps for air.

 Skulduggery sprints to her, falls to his knees, pulls her to him. He holds her so tightly, but the pain in her ribs is a good ache, an ache that says  _ look, look, look at how you live _ .

 He’s pressing his teeth to her cheek, her head, her neck.

 “Oh, thank God,” Skulduggery says, a hitch in his breath.

 “Can’t get rid of me that easily,” Stephanie coughs. Blood splatters onto his jaw. He doesn’t take any notice.

 “Don’t  _ ever _ do that again,” Skulduggery tells her, his forehead against hers.

 “You know me,” Stephanie says weakly. “I love raising some Cain.”

 “It might as well be your name, the amount you cause,” Skulduggery says.

 “Valkyrie Cain,” she mumbles. “Has a nice ring to it.”

 Skulduggery probes her ribs, and she winces. “You’re bleeding internally, and you’ve got several broken ribs. We need to get you out of here.”

 “The Grotesquery,” Stephanie protests. “The Gate…”

 “Fine, fine. I hate that you’re right,” Skulduggery mutters.

 “And what about the Scepter?” Stephanie asks. He looks at where he dropped it in the middle of the room. “It’s too powerful to leave here.”

 Skulduggery reaches out his arm; it rises into his hand, and they both look at it, at this thing that destroyed gods.

 “We need to destroy the Grotesquery,” Skulduggery says. “After that… I don’t know.”

 Stephanie looks at the Scepter in its splendour, in the many sigils so elegantly Carved into it. The black crystals are cracked, a dull grey that she knows instinctively is broken.

 “I think I could destroy it,” she says slowly. “Or at least, render it useless. For good.”

 “Good,” Skulduggery says, putting it in a deep inner pocket in his jacket. “Let’s get out of here.”

 He picks her up bridal style, and they leave the room. It feels like every Cleaver in the city must be topside for them to walk so easily through the halls, but as they come up to the first floor, there’s the sound of screeching metal and explosions.

 “Dexter,” Skulduggery says.

 “We need to help him,” Stephanie says. 

 “I’m not leaving you,” Skulduggery says fiercely , and she rolls her eyes. 

 “Don’t be an idiot,” she says. “We’re in this together.”

 He mutters something darkly, but as he comes to a splintered doorway, he sets her down, wraps an arm around her waist gently so she can stand upright; they walk through the entrance together.

 It’s a huge room, and the Gate sits amongst several dead Cleavers, shattered tiles and wall, and there- the Grotesquery in the corner of the room.

 Dexter and Tanith are both panting, in a standoff with Jaron and Erskine. Dexter has blood oozing down his leg, and Tanith’s elbow seems to be broken. Jaron is missing an ear and Erskine has a snarling cut through his lip. 

 The moment Skulduggery and her walk into the room, though, the entire dynamic changes.

 “Evening, gentlemen,” Skulduggery says. “I bring some very good news.”

 “Thank fuck for that,” Dexter says, not looking away from Erskine. “You killed him?”

   “Yes,” Skulduggery says, with a grim satisfaction.

 (“Are you okay, Val?” Tanith asks.

  “I’ve been worse,” she replies.)

 “Liar,” Jaron says. “You can’t  _ kill _ Serpine. Not anymore.”

 Skulduggery shrugs. “Everything can be killed with the right tools,” he says, and carefully pulls out the Scepter.

 Jaron immediately drops to his knees, hands up in surrender. “I yield,” he says. “I yield.”

 “Coward,” Erskine says in disgust, glancing down at his comrade. He looks back at Skulduggery. “Serpine’s truly dead?”

 “As dead as a doornail,” Skulduggery says lazily. 

 “And how do I know that Scepter isn’t just a fake?” Erskine asks warily. 

 Skulduggery flicks the Scepter at the Grotesquery; the air cracks once more and the Grotesquery turns to dust that piles onto the floor. Everyone stares at it. Skulduggery gives another lazy flick- and now the Gate disintegrates. 

 “Christ,” Tanith says, in awe.

“It’s over,” Skulduggery says to Erskine. He lets the arm holding the Scepter fall back to his side, but the threat is clear, and Stephanie sees how Erskine’s eyes flick to it.

 “Don’t be a fool, Ravel,” Tanith says sharply, but Erskine is already moving; Skulduggery lets him flick the Scepter from his hand with a blast of wind, and it soars across the entrance into the hallway.

 “Did you see that, Dexter?” Skulduggery says. “He disarmed me.”

 “He did,” Dexter says solemnly, and Jaron looks nervously at how Dexter’s lips are turning into a smile.

 “Well, I suppose I have to act in self defense now, don’t I?” Skulduggery says thoughtfully, and he and Dexter move ruthlessly as one; an explosion snaps across the room and Skulduggery moves his hand and traps it in a bubble of air before Erskine or Jaron can act and then the inside of the bubble is painted with smoke and light and two bodies worth of blood and entrails.

 And like that, it’s over. Stephanie stares at the mess that drops to the floor as Skulduggery releases his hold on the air, and Tanith bends to pick up her sword. 

 “Good thing you get here when you did,” she says to Skulduggery. “That Gallows is awful hard to fight.”

 “I aim to please,” Skulduggery says, and they all look as he calls the Sceptre back to him.

 “What are you going to do with it?” Tanith asks, tying a makeshift sling for her arm with her jacket.

 “Valkyrie?” Skulduggery says, offering her the Scepter. It’s heavy, so much heavier than she would ever have thought, and he keeps her upright as she carefully holds it, this thing which caused so much destruction.

 “Can you get my scalpel?” Stephanie asks Skulduggery, and he takes it out of her coat pocket for her. It sits in her hands comfortably, and she stares at those many twisting sigils. Her ancestors created it; it seems fitting she’s the one to destroy it.

It’s a simple sigil, one China showed her a long time ago, a sigil rarely used. It’s much the mirror image of that sigil she cut into Caelan’s throat; a line with a flick at the end. But where that sigil simply stopped, this one irreversibly corrodes.

 She carves it deeply, makes the angle of the flick very tight, increasing the power of it. The moment she takes her scalpel away, the Scepter begins to crinkle, that golden filigree turning a copper-green, and then quite abruptly, the entire thing crumples into rust in her hands. The cracked crystals shatter, and the Scepter is no more.

 

-

 

Stephanie is struggling to keep conscious as Skulduggery carries her up to the entrance, each step he takes bringing her agony. So it’s with no small amount of relief that when Tanith opens the door to the outside world, Fletcher is standing there.

 “What are you doing?” Tanith says furiously. “The Cleavers could have killed you!”

 Fletcher shakes his head, grinning. “Some Necromancer named Wreath has turned up out the front of the Sanctum about ten minutes ago. Those zombie Cleavers? They answer to the Necromancers now.”

 “Just what we need,” Skulduggery says flatly.

 “The Necromancers are standing down as well, don’t worry,” Fletcher tells him. “Corrival and Sorrows are in charge now. Corrival sent me back here to bring you guys home.”

 “Who’s going to clean this up?” Dexter asks. Now that the excitement and satisfaction of revenge is gone, he looks haggard. Exhausted.

 “Mr. Bliss,” Fletcher says, and Tanith straightens.

 “In that case, I’m staying here,” she tells him. “I owe him a great debt, and he’ll need my help.”

 “Your elbow is off,” Skulduggery says to her. “You should see a medic.”

 “She’ll be right,” Tanith says dismissively. 

 “I’ll stick around too,” Dexter says. “Not much waiting for me back home, anyhow. Might as well help out here.”

 Fletcher shrugs. “Okay, but he said I  _ definitely _ have to take Valkyrie back.”

 “As he should,” Skulduggery nods. “Take us home, Fletcher.”

 So Fletcher reaches out, and the sensation of teleportation itself is fine, but the movement of it sends Stephanie’s ribs cracking and she passes out in Skulduggery’s arms even as they materialise in the antechamber.

 

-

 

When she comes to, she’s in an unfamiliar room. Her vision is bleary, and she feels like someone has broken every bone in her body and put it back together.

 A man next to her, his eyes shut, and a skeleton on her right.

 “Glad to see you’re awake,’ Skulduggery murmurs, reaching out to cup her face. She nuzzles into his palm, sighing. 

 “How long was I out?”

 “Three days, give or take,” Skulduggery says softly. “Your father hasn’t left your side.”

 She looks at her dad, who indeed, is sitting there, arms crossed over his chest as he snores, and her heart fills her throat.

 “I’ve filled him in on everything,” Skulduggery continues. “Well, the basics. I thought you might want to tell him the whole story yourself.”

 Her father snoozes, and as she watches him, she feels so… content.

 “So what happens now?” she asks Skulduggery, still looking at her father; rumpled, pale, three days of stubble on his jaw.

 “Quite a lot, I’m afraid,” Skulduggery says. His hand joins with hers. “Between the refugees being relocated, charging the sorcerers who backed Serpine, organising the rebuilding… It’s going to be a very busy couple of years.”

 “Is Corrival going to lead?”

 Skulduggery hums. The sound is low, reassuring. “No. People are panicking, and Corrival is a good interim leader. But we need a mortal-sorcerer government”

 “Will you help lead? When it’s all done?” Stephanie asks.

 Skulduggery tilts his head, presses his teeth to her hand. “I’ve led enough in my lifetime,” he says. “Valkyrie…”

  “Yes?” 

  “I’ve been alone for a very long time. I need someone by my side, with the years ahead of us. And there’s something about you, Stephanie.”

  “Valkyrie,” she corrects him. “Valkyrie Cain.”

  The name slots into her, settles into her. Skulduggery tilts his head.

  “I thought, with all this done and dusted, you’d be happy to return to your given name once more.”

 Stephanie thinks. “To my father, and to Gordon, I’ll always be Stephanie. But I think… I think I’ve changed. I don’t think I’m that girl anymore.”

 “Valkyrie Cain,” Skulduggery says, testing the name, and she likes how he says it, likes how his voice rumbles over those words.

 “Cain and Pleasant,” she says with a smile. “That can be the name of our agency, once day.”

 “Pleasant and Cain,” he corrects her. “Age before beauty.”

 “Cain and Pleasant,” she says firmly. “That’s that. Until the end.”

 Skulduggery tilts his head. “Until the end.”

 She reaches out with a trembling hand to pull his tie, yanking him towards her. His teeth are cold, and she couldn’t care less.

 “You goon,” she mumbles against his jaw.

 Skulduggery hums his agreement, his hand twining through her hair, and as they pull apart, Desmond stirs in his chair.

 “Steph?” he says sleepily.

 “Hey, Dad,” Stephanie says, and Desmond reaches out and enfolds her in a hug, the type of hug that would keep her close and safe as a child after a nightmare. It’s with this hug that Stephanie realises it’s over now, really over.

 “Skulduggery here told me about the trouble you got yourself into,” Desmond says. “Couldn’t just stop at punching a Captain, huh?”

 Stephanie shrugs weakly.

 “You get that from your mother,” Desmond tells her, smiling, and he’s teary now as well. “She would be so proud of you.”

 “Thanks, Dad,” Stephanie says. He smells like a father should, like aftershave and cotton.

 “So, tell me,” Desmond says, settling back into his chair. He holds one of Stephanie’s hands, and Skulduggery holds the other. “How  _ did _ you escape Marr?”

 It’s a long story, Stephanie thinks. But she looks at her two favourite people in the world, and takes a deep breath that radiates down into her bones, a calmness she hasn’t felt in so long a time.

  “It was all thanks to this man with a really,  _ really _ bland face,” she begins, and Skulduggery laughs.

 Because finally _ , finally _ , there’s time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last chapter to go!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day in the life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Mooncactus for betaing!!!!!!!!!!!

The call comes in one foggy Tuesday morning. Valkyrie opens her eyes to the rain pattering on the window. She can feel the storm, feel the water against the glass, feel the air rushing outside, and her communicator is screeching. She answers it with a groan, listens with a grunt, and hangs up without so much as a goodbye, and turns her head to the skeleton spooning her.

 “We need to get up,” Valkyrie says half-heartedly.

 “It can wait,” Skulduggery murmurs, curling around her tightly.

 “Anton and Maryam chewed us out only last week, because you said it could wait,” Valkyrie says, sighing as he lightly bites the back of her neck. “ _ You _ can tell them that.”

 “I  _ will _ tell them that,” Skulduggery says, and he trails his fingers down her ribs. 

 “Yeah, I’m sure the Governor-Generals will be overjoyed to hear we turned up half an hour late,  _ again _ , to a murder case,” Valkyrie mumbles, arching against him.

 “Murder, schmurder,” Skulduggery says. 

 “His intestines were hanging off the curtain rods.”

 “I’ve seen worse,” Skulduggery mutters.

 “Come on,” Valkyrie says firmly.

 Skulduggery sighs. “Your dedication to your job is admirable, and extraordinarily frustrating.”

 “ _ Someone _ has to uphold Cain and Pleasant’s reputation,” Valkyrie says teasingly, rolls over to press a kiss to his cheekbones. His facade fades up, and he pulls her into the kiss, deep and passionate. It leaves her  _ throbbing _ .

 “Unfair,” she tells him, and shivers as he kisses her neck. “Come on, up we get.”

 “Can’t we have a relaxing morning for once?” Skulduggery sighs.

 “We can finish this after the meeting,” she tells him, opening the wardrobe door. 

 “In our favourite broom closet?”

 “If you’re lucky,” she teases, pulling out a deep brown pantsuit and a black shirt.

 “We’re going to frighten a cleaner someday,” Skulduggery says, joining her. He pulls out a Bespoke classic, his favourite blue pinstriped suit.  

 “We overthrew a dictator,” Valkyrie shrugs. “If I want to fuck in a broom closet, I think I’ve earned it.”

 “Spoken like a true rebel,” Skulduggery says dryly, and she throws her shoe at him.

-

 

Breakfast is a quick protein shake, and then they’re out the door. Valkyrie redirects the rain away from the two of them as they climb into their carriage. Skulduggery runs his finger along the sigils on the dashboard, and the carriage lifts up and speeds off.

 “God, I miss the Bentley,” Skulduggery sighs.

 “I know,” Valkyrie says comfortingly, patting his arm. 

 “You couldn’t possibly know,” Skulduggery says bitterly. “She was a 1954, R-Type Continental-

 “One of only 208 ever made,” Valkyrie says, “With a six-cylinder, 4.5-litre engine, and you retro-fitted her with central locking, climate control, satellite navigation and a host of other modern conveniences.”

 “And the leather upholstery,” Skulduggery says. “You can’t forget the leather upholstery.” He pauses. “I love you, Valkyrie.”

 “I love you too.”

 The carriage joins the main traffic stream as they head south down to Dublin. It’s a quick, smooth ride, like always, and by nine o’clock, they’re at City Hall. The carriage slots itself into designated parking, and they climb out. The rain has stopped, and everything has that dewy fresh look, bright and crisp. They cross the courtyard, past the Memorial, and the sun is sliding out from behind the clouds as they enter.

 It’s bustling, like usual, and Valkyrie nods to Gina at her desk as they pass, taking the staircase down into the older parts of the building, where the old Sanctuary was once hidden, down to the Magical Crime department.

 Sam Gladly is waiting for them, his teeth bright white and charming against his dark skin as he joins them.

 “Bubblegum filled me in,” Valkyrie says. “Sounds nasty.”

 “Yeah, nasty’s about right,” Sam nods. He’s a late blooming sorcerer who discovered his magic in his thirties, just after the Rebellion. Fifteen years later, Sam is one of the finest Inspectors that’s come out of the sorcerer-mortal integration programs Anton and Maryam have put in place.

 “Clarabelle’s had a look at the corpse,” Sam continues, showing them into his office. They pass several officers who look at them with a mixture of awe and nervousness. Sam sits behind his desk, and Valkyrie takes a seat. Skulduggery remains standing.

 “So, why call us in?” Valkyrie asks.

 “Well, this guy has sigils carved all over his body. A  _ lot _ of sigils.”

 He passes Valkyrie some photos; the sigils are scarred in, and she frowns. The grammar is all over the place, and the sigils are rough, and there’s something weirdly familiar about it.

 “Obviously, none of us are sigil experts,” Sam says, looking at Valkyrie pointedly. “So I was hoping you might be able to pull a lead from all of this. Because frankly, we have  _ nothing. _ ”

 “We’ll see what we can do,” Valkyrie says, passing the photos back to Sam. “Can we pop down to the morgue?” 

 “Sure. Clarabelle’s in there now. She’s got the cadaver’s file down there too.”

 “Cheers,” Valkyrie says, shakes his hand, and they head down.

 “You’re awfully quiet,” she says to Skulduggery.

 “I like it when you take charge of a case,” he shrugs. 

 “Does it turn you on?” she grins.

 “No,” he says. “It just means I can think about making love to you in a broom closet without distraction.”

 “Incorrigible,” she says. They take the stairs down again and round the corner. It’s chilly down here; between the magi-servers and the corpses, the air conditioning is on full bore.

 Clarabelle is drinking from a perilously wide clay mug when they walk in, her shock of bright pink hair tied out of her face.

 “Hello!” she says cheerfully, scratching her cheek. Valkyrie grimaces when she sees Clarabelle has forgotten to take off her surgical gloves; something dark brown smears across her cheek.

 “Clarabelle,” Skulduggery greets her. “Sam sent us down here to check out that new cadaver.”

 “He’s just over there, poor thing,” Clarabelle says, pointing into the adjoining room. 

 Valkyrie can’t stop staring at her cheek. “Clarabelle, you’ve got something, uh, just here-” she points at her face.

 “Here?” Clarabelle asks, scrubbing at her ear. Gore gets caked in her hair.

 “Got it,” Skulduggery nods, and Valkyrie gives up. They go into the room, where a dead man lies on the table.

 The sigil scarring is extensive; from the ankles, all the way up to the wrists, raised scars that are as vicious as they are inexpert. Valkyrie picks up a magnifying glass from the little trolley Clarabelle uses for her tools and leans over the body, examining them. Skulduggery, meanwhile, picks up the blood splattered case file gingerly, flipping through it.

 “Vaurien Scapegrace,” he reads aloud. “Age three hundred and fifty four, time of death estimated to be today, three forty three in the morning.”

 She frowns over the magnifying glass. “These are some weird ass sigils,” she says.

 Skulduggery looks up. “Is that your professional opinion?”

 “Mhm. They’re fresh, too. See how pink they are? This was done within the last few months.” Valkyrie puts the magnifying glass down just long enough to pull on a pair of gloves, and then carefully pulls the man’s eyelids up.

 “Oh, now that’s just gross,” she exclaims. “Someone’s carved his eyeballs. This is some medieval shit.”

 “He was a relatively boring man, it seems,” Skulduggery continues, leaning against the side of the table as Valkyrie keeps looking. “After the Rebellion, he kept mostly to himself, then disappeared from his self-chosen job at a bar out at Roarhaven a few weeks back.”

 “No-one reported his absence?” Valkyrie asks, checking the corpse’s hands. 

 “He wasn’t very well liked,” Skulduggery says absently. 

 “Interesting,” Valkyrie says.

 “Not really,” Skulduggery says. “I find most people dislikeable, personally.”

 “Not that. Look at this.” 

 They both stare at a little scar just under his armpit. A very familiar looking little scar.

 “Strange place for a scarification tattoo,” Skulduggery says eventually.

 “If I’m not mistaken,” Valkyrie says, “That looks rather familiar.”

 “Indeed it does,” Skulduggery agrees.

 “Looks like we have our lead,” Valkyrie says, peeling her gloves off. She tosses them into the bin in the corner, and they wave at Clarabelle on the way out. 

 “It’s been many a year since we went to the Temple,” Skulduggery says.

 “Wreath is still in charge, right?” Valkyrie says grimly. “Maybe we’ll get the chance to threaten him a little.”

 “God, you know just how to rev my engine,” Skulduggery murmurs. “There’s a broom closet just around the corner, you know.”

 Her nose wrinkles even as heat shoots down to her stomach. “The one that smells like bleach?”

 “Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made,” Skulduggery says, his voice rough as he bites her earlobe.

 Twenty very sweaty minutes later, they make their way back upstairs and emerge into a gloriously sunny day.

 “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Skulduggery says, looking up at the sky, “But this day has really turned around. An easy lead, the chance to threaten Wreath, having sex in a closet…”

 “It’s a good day for a murder,” Valkyrie agrees, and they both climb into the carriage. As it takes off, Valkyrie hums, turns to Skulduggery.

 “You know, I just realised what those sigils reminded me of,” she says. “They were the same sort of template used for the old Circuits. Lots of branches focusing on redirection and looping.”

 “Now, why would someone want to go through the trouble of Carving that on a perfectly good nobody?” Skulduggery muses.

 The dashboard lights up and Sam appears on the crystal windshield.

 “I know you guys just left,” he says grimly, “But  _ another _ body has just been found.”

 “Is there a little scar under the armpit?” Valkyrie asks.

 Sam disappears and then reappears a few moments later. “Yeah, actually. I don’t know how to describe the shape, though.”

 “Like an upside down fruit bowl?” Valkyrie and Skulduggery say at the same time.

 “Uh,” Sam says. “Yeah, actually.”

 “Right,” Skulduggery says. “We’re en route to the Temple now. We suspect the killer might be a Necromancer, and we plan to interrogate Wreath about it.”

 “That’s the thing,” Sam says. “It  _ is  _ Wreath.”

 “What?” Valkyrie says in surprise. Skulduggery says nothing.

 “Yeah. Turned up in the Liffey about twenty minutes ago, apparently. We have officers at the Temple now, they’ll meet you there. Keep this quiet.”

 “Of course,” Skulduggery says, and Sam disappears.

 “So,” Valkyrie says. “There go our morning plans.”

 “I take it back,” Skulduggery sighs. “This morning has taken another turn. This time for the worst.”

 “Aw, cheer up,” Valkyrie says, patting his knee. “Maybe Clarabelle will let you poke him with a scalpel or something.”

 “You always know just what to say,” he says fondly. “We make such an excellent team.”

 “Cain and Pleasant until the end,” she nods.

 “Until the end,” he repeats. “What do you bet it’s a secret Necromancer cult?”

 “Nah. One guy with a sharp knife and a grudge.”

 Skulduggery taps a sigil on the dash; red and blue lights start flashing from the top of the carriage, a siren sounding. The carriage lifts above the standard traffic zone, and shoots across the city. 

 “Let’s go catch a serial killer then,” Skulduggery says.

 “God, I love it when you talk dirty,” Valkyrie grins- and off they go.

(It’s not a serial killer. It’s not a cult. But the tale of how Cain & Pleasant stop the Passage and save for the world is another story for another time.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we are DONE. That's a wrap!!!!! Finito!!!!
> 
> Huge thanks to Mooncactus, who is the best beta and was eager and helpful the entire time I wrote this. Thanks to the Skeleton Committee (bless you all) for your lovely comments and support!!! And thanks to everyone reading this, kudosing this, and commenting on this. Your comments literally make my day!!
> 
> In before anyone asks- yes, I might one day do a sequel for this. God knows I certainly have some ideas for it. But IF I do, it won't be for quite a while- I've written about 120,000 words in the last two years (not including one shots!) and my creativity is Quite Done for a bit. But keep an eye on my profile- I have some oneshot ideas for more AU's, and of course, when Book 12 comes out, you best believe there'll be some fic for it.
> 
> ALSO- here's the link for my playlist for this fic: https://open.spotify.com/user/elinadsy/playlist/6nJXb5WMxrPg1w8tVoLQMo?si=nn1EidhTR7S5OhqT1J3FTQ  
> And here's the matching tumblr post with explanations for each song: https://elinadsy.tumblr.com/post/176574388112/so-heres-my-playlist-for-buried-under-deeper


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